From International Viewpoint, March 1997. Many had a long experience in the unions as shop stewards, branch secretaries, regional union leaders and some as national executive members. For far too long, the left in each union has been, through necessity, concerned with the affairs of their own union. The unrelenting attack from employers and the Tories combined with the union bureaucracy's total inaction has placed the unions in crisis and forced the left into retreat. The number of strike days has decreased even more sharply from 6.4 million in 1985 to 415,000 in 1995 - the lowest level in over a century.
Youth have little interest or possibility in joining unions.
Union membership is now concentrated amongst older workers in the privatised utilities such as telecommunications or rail and in the remaining public sector. To raise productivity, employers have reduced the work force. Those new jobs created are without security and often part-time. The employers' offensive has brought about dramatic changes in working conditions through flexibility, team-working, performance related pay and temporary contracts. To maintain recognition, some unions have agreed to single-union deals at the expense of any control over working conditions, even renouncing strike action in favour of compulsory arbitration.