VOLUNTARY action, like lay leadership and involvement in unions, is encouraged and widespread in a range of organisations.

Thirty-eight per cent of the population are involved in some form of civic participation, around 75 per cent often give to charity with £22 a month being an average donation.

The most commonly cited reasons for being involved in volunteering in the community are that people want to “improve things” or “help people.”

These of course are the same motivations which underpin trade unionism. The commitments to social justice and collective action are shared by both sectors.

Many community organisations refer to their work to empower people and collectivise interests as social action. This is the equivalent of what trade unions refer to as campaigning, but it often has a more extensive and permanent presence in communities, as opposed to one-off campaigning.

Social action is about being involved with issues affecting the local area by doing things like: setting up a new service; stopping the closure of a service; stopping something bad happening in the local area; running a local service on a voluntary basis; helping to organise a community event.

According to the Community Life survey in 2017-18, 15 per cent of people had been involved in social action in their local area at least once in the last year. This is far more people than have been involved in trade union action.

Most progressive, socialist-minded community organisations, some of which were previously local government or national government funded, have also struggled after funding cuts.

Many of the national support organisations for specialisms within the community sector have disappeared.

A new wave of more independent organisations has fortunately emerged, yet ultimately many of these also depend for their continuity on local government or government funding. Unlike the trade unions, community organisations do not rely almost exclusively on membership subscriptions.

A predominant legal entity within the community movement is the charity. This form of organisation prohibits explicit party-political campaigning, but does not prevent campaigning to relieve poverty, provide welfare and education, arts and cultural activities.

Trade unions are registered by the certification officer and cannot explicitly support a political party without holding a successful vote to establish a political fund from which all such “political” work must be resourced.

The community sector sometimes sees the trade union movement as an appendage of the Labour Party. It is not. Out of 130 unions registered with the certification officer, only 13 are affiliated to the Labour Party.

Political independence has been as important to trade unions as it has been to the charitable and community sector, yet unions and employees generally face far more restrictive legislation than community organisations.

The successful campaigning for rights and legislative changes and reformed institutions and practices undertaken by generations of trade unionists has arguably had a greater legislative impact than the community movement.

Fundamental employment and democratic rights which affect everyone have been achieved by the unions.

Many trade unions themselves fund their own charities, closely or less closely associated with their core work. Some support associated charities in delivering huge education programmes, some manage retirement and rest homes for retired or sick members. Many have essential welfare funds.

Some unions have developed what they might refer to as “community memberships” organised in “community branches.” These give a democratic forum and voice within the unions for those not directly organised around the workplace. This is great.

Most professional footballers, for example, have “working in the community” written into their contracts of employment and football clubs all run a community projects arm.

The Professional Footballers Association has in fact been one of the most pioneering and successful trade unions when it comes to community outreach and engagement.

Like trade unions, many community organisations manage properties and training or residential centres. This is common in the faith sector, but also in non-sectarian umbrella organisations, for example, local village halls, community associations running community centres.

There has been minimal sharing of physical and building resources between the unions and between them and the community sector. There should be more.

Community organisations and trade unions both depend on the voluntary activity of members. In France there is a great phrase for this which roughly translates as the “associative life.” It refers to the cultural reality that society is the voluntary, freely chosen support we give to family, friends, community and colleagues.

The idea of community or communal life is essential for progressive social change — it fundamentally challenges the fragmented individualism that capitalism loves.

We create together “civil society,” we commune collectively with each other. Community organisations, trade unions, elected institutions and professional bodies are the public sphere of our country and promote different values from those of the dominant private and corporate spheres and unelected media and political institutions.  

Unions want to do more to involve a new generation of young workers but rarely speak to the hundreds of very good youth organisations. These engage and inspire and organise young people in ways that are far more effective and sustained than the trade unions.

Some, like the Woodcraft Folk or the British Youth Council, actively seek to promote awareness of trade unions and support young people becoming members of unions.

If you consider historic moments or generational campaigns of significance for the creation of a more democratic and equal society in Britain, all of them have been successful when trade unions and wider community organisations have been in close alignment or combination.

Consider the origin of the Reform Act of 1867, with its source in the 1792 manifesto of the London Corresponding Society, later the unions and Chartists, the suffragettes and so on.

Consider the struggles first against slavery and then racism, unions and community organisations together.

The long history of equal treatment and pay for women in work, impossible to think of without the simultaneous action of those in work, particularly at the Trico factory in 1976, and those in the wider liberation movement.

Consider the removal of child labour and establishment of state education.

Consider the development of health and safety at work. Consider the creation of the welfare state, trade unions and mutual societies and charities did not just campaign for its creation, originally provided all those services now provided by the state.

Advances in educational methodology, to break the elitism and false hierarchies of university-dominated systems, and create a genuine sense of lifelong learning, were pioneered in trade union and community work organisations.

Successful peace campaigns, from 1916 till today have seen unions, campaigning and faith organisations at the forefront.

The changes we require to the collapsing and rigged economy now, demand a new coalition of trade unions and community organisations.

To access free education courses on these subjects visit www.gftu.org.uk.