Unions have been in decline in the UK for 50 years. A new law could begin to reverse that trend

The UK’s employment rights bill will usher in major changes for workers from April 2026. But beyond promising improved rights for employees over unfair dismissal and sick pay, one of the most controversial aspects of the bill concerns the rights of trade unions.

Millions of UK workers belong to a trade union. They are found in virtually every key industry in the UK, including healthcare, education and transport. This new legislation promises to strengthen their rights – notably by forcing employers to make their staff aware that they have the right to join one.

Under the new law, employers will have to share a government-approved message with workers setting out their right to join a union and details of the unions the employer recognises. The government hopes that this will put pressure on exploitative employers to treat staff better and not to discourage union membership.

By the time the bill is fully rolled out in 2027, changes are also expected around unfair dismissal, bereavement leave, and zero-hour contracts – all changing in favour of the worker.

Politically, this milestone allows Labour to reassert its longstanding relationship with the broader trade union movement, which was vital to the founding of the party back in 1900.

The bill has been approved by both the Commons and the Lords, and when it becomes law it will represent the biggest change in favour of trade unions since the ascent of Margaret Thatcher in the late 1970s. More broadly, it could mark the start of reversing 50 years of continuous trade union decline in the UK.

My research focuses on the history of the British trade union movement since the 1980s. In the UK, unions reached the peak of their power in the 1970s, even contributing to the fall of Edward Heath’s Conservative government in 1974.

Then, the “winter of discontent” (characterised by widespread industrial action) helped usher Thatcher to electoral victory in 1979 on a promise of taking a tougher line on trade unions.

If anything, Thatcher overdelivered on this promise. Over the next decade, numerous new laws reduced the ability of unions to call disruptive strike action.

These included forcing votes to take place if any strike action was to be legal, restricting what counts as a “trade dispute”, protecting workers who refused to go on strike from reprisals, and giving employers more power to dismiss those taking part in unofficial strike action.

Tightening the screw

Subsequent Conservative governments followed this pattern, further restricting union power. In the 1990s, John Major’s government gave employers the power to decide whether to recognise a union, regardless of the size of the membership. It also mandated that unions give seven days’ notice of strike action.

David Cameron’s government doubled the notice period for strike action, and required a 50% turnout for any ballot to be legal, with strike action itself tightly regulated. Then the government of Boris Johnson allowed employers to hire temporary agency workers to undercut strike action.

Rishi Sunak’s government introduced “minimum service levels” in key industries in the event of strike action, with unions legally liable if they refused to co-operate with employers and make members go to work.

It wasn’t just the Conservatives. Even when New Labour was elected in 1997, hopes for a change in union fortunes did not materialise. The governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown refused to reverse or change the restrictive legislation, concerned that being seen as too pro-union would damage their re-election prospects, particularly among middle class voters.

If anything, New Labour’s policies may have inadvertently reduced union power further. Laws such as the National Minimum Wage Act reduced the need for collective bargaining.

Labour’s new bill will reverse some of these restrictions. When fully implemented, minimal service levels and the 50% turnout requirement will be abolished in favour of a simple majority. The notice period will be reduced to 10 days, and rules on union recognition and balloting will be simplified.

But the years of decline have had consequences, both for employers and staff. The number of working days lost to strike action declined significantly: having peaked at 29.5 million in 1979, it was as low as 170,000 in 2015.

This suggests that unions are increasingly unable to bring their members together and encourage them to take strike action. An increasingly restrictive legal environment probably helped employers keep pressure on workers.

Similarly, the number of workers with union membership has halved – from a peak of 13.2 million in 1979 to 6.7 million in 2023. This represents a continuous decline since 1979.

Among younger workers, those with no memory or experience of what strike action and collective bargaining can achieve, the unionisation rate is even lower. In 2022, only 3.7% of trade union members were aged between 16 and 24. As well as the long-term decline in their power and efficacy, unions have also become much less visible in the workplace.

When compared internationally, the UK’s trade union landscape is even worse. French unions wield significant influence even though a relatively low proportion of the workforce belongs to a union, and can effectively disrupt transport and even energy supplies.

Germany’s social partnership model provides formal roles for unions in both business and politics, such as giving union representatives a seat on the board, resulting in low levels of conflict and union successes.

And South Africa elected a former trade union leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, as its president in 2018 (and for a second term in 2024).

The employment rights bill will not reverse decades of union decline and marginalisation in the UK overnight – but it represents the first pro-union reform in decades. For workers, this could reverse long-term trends in wage suppression and exploitation.

However, for many unions this is not a replacement for five decades of restrictive legislation. Even when the bill receives royal assent and becomes law, unions will still be leagues away from their 1970s peak. But given what it could mean for workers’ rights and representation in the workplace, this bill is the closest thing unions have had to a political and legal “victory” in decades.

Steven Daniels is a member of the University and College Union (UCU).