TODAY, hundreds of trade union delegates are gathering to look at the challenges and opportunities facing the movement on the back of the huge upsurge of strike action and industrial militancy since 2022. With 2.3 million strike days in 2022, the highest since the 1984-85 miners’ strike, and numerous national ballot successes, it seems that the unions are back.

Every night, the TV news has been covering strikes. All measures of public opinion show great support for strikers — on the railways and in the post service, not just nurses and doctors — and trade union general secretaries routinely embarrass bosses in televised debates about the cost-of-living crisis.

The activists who are attending this meeting are the people who have mobilised the yes votes and organised the pickets. Union members have stepped up and delivered yes votes and massive picket numbers.

Yet there is a sense of pause. Many deals, recommended or otherwise, are being rejected, and many that are accepted are below the rate of inflation.  

There are some exciting and inspirational speakers from important disputes. From RMT, Unite, GMB, RCN and the NEU — many unions are represented by strikers and activists.

Jeremy Corbyn and Lindsey German will be there to link together these debates with the wider political situation. It’s a crucial moment. Will the excitement and enthusiasm generated so far be sustained and used to rebuild the movement? Or will a further period of decline set in?

There is a growing sense that the key to this is the development of a powerful and organised rank-and-file movement inside the trade unions. This is the key point of this first conference — how do we take it forward?

What do we mean by this notion of a rank-and-file movement? How do we build it? What will it do? How is it accountable to members and what is the role of members? All speakers will be seeking to look at these questions and start to answer them.

There are many challenges to trade unions. Since 1979, there has been a long-term decline in membership figures and a general inability to adapt to changes in the economy and society.

In 1979 there were 13.2 million trade union members; today there are 6.7 million. Seventy-five per cent of trade union members are over the age of 35, with less than 3.7 per cent under the age of 24. Union membership fell by 200,000 in 2022.

In the private sector, trade union density is lower than 17 per cent. In finance, IT and retail it is less than 12 per cent. In some regions — notably greater London and south-east England — union density has fallen below 17 per cent.

These figures represent the very low base from which the unions now have to grow. I have outlined many of these massive problems in my book Our Trade Unions (Manifesto Press) and have looked at the failed attempts to reverse these long-term trends.

The trade union movement has tried the “servicing” approach — where they retreat from notions of solidarity and collectivism and offer individual services and discounts. This has failed.

They then moved to replicate “organising guru” practices imported mainly from the US — but these too now have failed.

The answer was always the revival of the power of the rank and file movement of 1960s and ’70s Britain. We can also see better examples from other parts of the world, including India and parts of the global South, where trade unions are engaged not just in rebuilding membership but taking up political challenges, opposing governments — or even, as in Bolivia, protecting governments.

The largest general strike in history was in India in 2021 and the British movement has barely registered an interest in how that happened.

It is hoped that the conference will debate these issues and discuss the next steps and that the debate will not simply be about union growth and recruitment but about politics and the role of the members of the unions.

The UCU congress vote to support the Stop the War Coalition brings forward many questions. The ice-cold position of the Labour Party and its refusal to back union claims brings forward other issues for union members. We should not be afraid to air all the questions around this.

There appears to be no parliamentary voice for the union members on strike — and so how do the unions respond to that?

The lack of youth involvement in trade unions is potentially the key to everything. Here we have a generation that cannot afford rents, mortgages, or even to live meaningful lives — but who care passionately about racism, the environment, equality and poverty.

All the national campaigns on these very issues are led and organised by massive numbers of young people. Convincing them to organise power at their workplace through the unions is perhaps the biggest challenge and we hope all speakers will address this issue.

In 1916 in the midst of the first world war, trade union members organised rank-and-file committees across the British unions. They declared that they would have a movement controlled by union members. This is the least we can aspire to today.