ORGANISING FOR THE FUTURE€¦ · automation and some at low risk. • New high skilled jobs are...

ORGANISING FOR THE FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES FOR CWU MEMBERSHIP GROWTH IN A DIGITAL AGE

ORGANISING FOR THE FUTURE PAGE OPPORTUNITIES FOR CWU MEMBERSHIP GROWTH IN A DIGITAL AGE 3

04Forward

05-06Summary

07CWU current approach to organising

08CWU industrial landscape SWOT analysis

09Points for further consideration

10Introduction

11Changes in the UK labour market

12Employment in post, telecoms and financial services

13-14The CWU today

15-17Trade union membership and finances

18-19CWU membership forecasts

20-23Trade union density

24CWU membership and density in the post and telecoms sectors

25-31Potential new CWU target companies in the post and telecoms sectors

32-34Potential for CWU membership growth outside the post and telecoms sectors

35-38 Other union recruitment and organising strategies and targets

39-40The impact of digitalisation in the post, telecoms and finance sectors

41-42Expectations of future growth and decline in the labour market

43-44Challenges for trade union organising in the new world of work

CONTENTS

PAGE ORGANISING FOR THE FUTURE 4 OPPORTUNITIES FOR CWU MEMBERSHIP GROWTH IN A DIGITAL AGE

FORWARD

There has never been a more important time to be a trade union member.

We must ask ourselves whether

we can afford not to organise

and represent new and self-

employed workers in our

sectors and beyond, if we are

to protect and improve labour

standards for our traditional

membership base in the future.”

The UK labour market has experienced an explosion of insecure employment, false self-employment and poverty pay since the 2008 recession.

The so-called ‘gig economy’ poses a major threat to standard forms of employment, as low cost businesses rely on casual workers who are paid piece rates and denied basic employment rights.

New technologies are set to fundamentally alter the way we live and work, in what is being termed the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’. These changes will create new jobs, but there are predictions that up to 11 million UK jobs are at risk through robotics and digitalisation over the next two decades.

This is a moment where the CWU and the wider trade union movement must accept our responsibility to make fresh demands on a new deal for all workers and develop innovative solutions that can organise far greater numbers of workers in this new and increasingly hostile world of work.

By taking on this challenge we can defend our existing members against a race to the bottom on pay and conditions, stand up for all working people, and pursue new opportunities for membership growth.

For our part, pretty much since the CWU first came into being, we have seen a decline in membership as employee numbers in our core recognised companies continue to fall due to privatisation, competition, cost cutting and automation.

This cannot continue if we are to be certain of our future as a standalone union. We must look to stabilise our existing membership levels and grow our membership where possible.

We must ask ourselves whether we can afford not to organise and represent new and self-employed workers in our sectors and beyond, if we are to protect and improve labour standards for our traditional membership base in the future. The whole union must be open to fresh ideas and innovative strategies and the “Organising for the Future” document, produced by our Research Department, is a very welcome addition to this crucial debate.

Whilst recognising the important recruitment and organising work we already do, this document looks at where there might be opportunities for the CWU to build on our existing activities and expand into new areas. It aims to inform a debate about the shape of our organising strategy in a new digital age.

Dave WardGeneral SecretaryApril 2018


SUMMARYTrade union membership in the UK

• Union membership is in long term decline, falling from 13 million at its peak in 1979, to 6.2 million today. Unions are heavily skewed towards the public sector and older workers.

• Around 6.2 million employees were trade union members in 2016, down by 275,000 (4.2%) over the year. This was the largest single fall since figures started to be recorded in 1995.

• Trade union membership density fell from 32.4% in 1995 to 23.5% in 2016.

• Union density in the private sector fell from 21.4% in 1995 to 13.4% in 2016.

• Union density in the public sector fell from 61.3% in 1995 to 51.7% in 2016.

• Women represent over half (54.5%) of all trade union members.

• Union members over 50 years old represent 39.1% of all members, whilst union members under 24 years old represent just 4.7% of all members.

• Ethnic minorities are underrepresented in union membership, making up 9.8% of all trade union members compared with 11.8% of all in employment.

CWU membership

• CWU membership increased marginally during 2017 to 191,424, but the overall trend is one of decline. Membership has fallen by 30.4% over the last 22 years, from 275,055 in 1995.

• Projections now suggest that the CWU will have between 167,092 and 184,560 members by 2024.

• The CWU has 38,158 female members, representing 19.7% of the current total.

• Black and minority ethnic (BAME) members who have declared their ethnicity account for 8% of the total.

• The union has 18,085 members under the age of thirty, or 9.3% of the total.

• We estimate the CWU to represent 36.4% of workers in the post & courier sector, 30.9% of workers in the telecoms sector and 34.5% of workers in the post & courier and telecoms sectors combined.

• Non-CWU membership in the post and telecoms sectors can now be estimated as 330,677.

Membership of other large TUC affiliated trade unions

• Despite the drop in union membership overall, some unions have succeeded in growing their membership over the last few years.

• Unite’s membership has fallen by 27.7% from 1,573,000 in 2010 to 1,137,468 in 2016.

• Unison’s membership has fallen by 11% from 1,375,000 in 2010 to 1,225,500 in 2016.

• GMB’s membership is up by 2.5% from 602,000 in 2010 to 617,213 in 2016, although it has seen declines in recent years.

• Usdaw’s membership has grown by 11% from 387,000 in 2010 to 429,463 in 2016.

Changes in the labour market

• Since the financial crisis in 2008, there has been a significant and rapid rise in self-employment and non-traditional, insecure forms of employment including zero hours contracts, agency work, and piecework in the so-called ‘gig economy’.

• Online crowdsourcing platforms such as Uber and TaskRabbit have created a new category of digital platform worker without basic employment protection.

• There is evidence of a major problem of false self-employment, with estimates that nearly half a million workers could be in this situation.1

• The UK employment rate is at a near-record high, but levels of in-work poverty have risen dramatically, with 1.7 million more people affected than in 2010-11 when the economic recovery began. There are a total of 8 million people, including 2.7 million children, living in poverty despite being in a working family.2

• The growth of unregulated, low cost competition poses a threat to jobs and labour standards in the regulated economy. This is a clear threat in the postal sector, where the use of self-employed owner drivers by parcel companies threatens to accelerate a race to the bottom on pay and conditions.

1 Citizens Advice estimated in 2014 that one in ten or 460,000 self-employed workers were falsely self-employed. There were 4.8 million self-employed workers in 2017, so based on the research by Citizens Advice the figure is likely to have increased to at least 480,000 today.

2 UK Poverty 2017, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, December 2017


3 OECD estimate of 10% of UK jobs at risk, 20164 Transformers, How machines are changing every sector of the UK Economy, Deloitte, 2016

The impact of digitalisation and automation on jobs

• Digitalisation of the economy poses a major threat to existing jobs and labour standards.

• Commentators predict that between approximately 3.2 million3 and 11 million4 UK jobs are at risk over the next two decades due to digitalisation and automation.

• Although digitalisation is set to be hugely disruptive for the labour market, there is expected to be a small overall growth in employment over the next ten years driven by construction; trade, accommodation and transport; business and other services sectors.

• Observers generally expect digitalisation to lead to a reduction of middle skilled jobs, and a growth in low skilled and high skilled jobs, which threatens to exacerbate inequality.

• Jobs at most risk of automation tend to be those that follow well defined procedures, including office work and clerical tasks; sales and commerce; transport, logistics, credit analysis and insurance claim processing.

• Jobs at least risk tend to be those that require creative or social intelligence, or a high degree of flexibility and physical adaptability. These include roles in computing, engineering, legal services, health, social care, business, education, arts and the media.

• Postal service mail sorting jobs and heavy truck driving jobs are thought to be at a relatively high risk of being automated over the next decade or two.

• Telecoms installers and repairers are thought to be at relatively low risk, but this could change with the growth of fibre networks.

• Routine customer service roles will increasingly be automated, but there will still be a need for workers to deal with more complex queries.

• The impact of digitalisation on jobs in the finance sector is expected to be varied, with some roles at high risk of automation and some at low risk.

• New high skilled jobs are expected for software and application developers, specialists in networking, artificial intelligence; and designers and producers of new intelligent machines.

• New low or unskilled jobs are expected to include data entry workers on digital platforms and gig workers in the ‘collaborative’ economy including drivers, cleaners and odd jobbers.

Other union organising activity

• Trade unions are thinking differently and exploring new ways and ideas for adjusting their recruitment, organising and campaigning strategies to capture new members in the changing world of work.

• Unions including Unite and the GMB have made a conscious decision to pursue an issue based organising strategy in some areas that centres on campaigning, political pressure and legal representation, such as in Sports Direct, Uber and ASOS.

• Issue based organising often involves unions joining forces with other interest groups to strengthen their campaigns. For example, whilst Unite led the campaign for workers in Sports Direct, they were backed by a number of supporters including Unison, 38 Degrees, local MPs, and the media.

• Issue based campaigns regularly gain public attention and some have brought positive change for workers. However, there is no clear evidence that they have been particularly successful to date in building membership density.

• Unions including Unite, the GMB, Usdaw and the

Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) are striving to recruit members in the ‘gig economy’. This includes unregulated delivery companies Hermes, Yodel and CitySprint.

• The GMB and the IWGB have made efforts to recruit, organise and represent online platform workers, including in Uber and Deliveroo.

• The GMB won a landmark tribunal case on behalf of Uber drivers in 2016, and has since launched claims for self-employed couriers in Hermes and DPD. The IWGB has won tribunal cases for cycle couriers at Addison Lee, CitySprint and Excel.

• Unions including BECTU (now a division of Prospect), Community and Ver.di have a clear offering for self-employed workers, including advice on tax and standard rates of pay, support with client disputes and counselling on contractual and social security issues.

• Unions such as Usdaw have adjusted their offering to make union membership financially attractive, with discounts on insurance and other goods and services which can cover the cost of membership.

• Unite has introduced low cost community membership for people outside of the workplace, which helps to extend its influence and raise its profile.


CWU CURRENT APPROACHTO ORGANISING

In 2012, the CWU disbanded its central organising department and allocated responsibility for managing the union’s organising activity to the industrial constituencies.

In the postal constituency, we are currently focusing in particular on tackling areas of non membership in Royal Mail Group under the banner of ‘Project 20 Plus’. We are also looking at the potential for organising and recruitment in non-recognised companies, including in UK Mail where we already have some members.

In the telecoms and financial services sectors, we are working on maximising our membership density in our core recognised areas such as BT, Santander and Telefonica 02, whilst also seeking to grow membership in other areas. This includes non-recognised companies such as Virgin Media, Sky, PlusNet, Teleperformance, Convergys, Vodafone and EE (now a non-recognised part of BT). There has been a particular focus on campaigning and building membership in contact centres in recent years and this is set to continue in 2018.

As part of the CWU’s ongoing Redesign project, the NEC has recognised the need to develop a clearer and more ambitious central organising strategy. Work is continuing towards that goal, and this document forms part of that project.

As part of the CWU’s ongoing Redesign project, the NEC has recognised the need to develop a clearer and more ambitious central organising strategy.”


STRENGTHSThe CWU is a strong industrial trade union with high membership density in our core recognised employers.

The union is well equipped to service and meet the needs of existing core members.

We have a clear organising strategy for our core recognised employers.

The union is targeting members in new areas including in EE, contact centres and UK Mail.

The union has been working on ways to recruit and engage under-represented groups including women, BAME, and young workers, with well established structures to support this effort.

The CWU has raised its profile through an innovative communications strategy, including highly effective use of social media.

The union has a new membership offer with discounts on benefits and services.

WEAKNESSESThe CWU has a declining membership base, largely due to a gradual fall in headcount in our core recognised employers. The union has no current offering designed to meet the needs of the expanding labour force of self-employed workers.

The CWU has not taken up the cause of any self-employed workers through campaigns or legal action in our sectors, arguably putting us behind other unions in laying claim to these workers as future members.

The CWU has no dedicated resource or unit to service the needs of self-employed workers or members in new areas.

Despite considerable efforts, like other unions the CWU has struggled to recruit and engage young workers in sufficient numbers.

OPPORTUNITIESThe parcel delivery market is growing and whilst other unions are targeting this area, it remains a largely unorganised sector.

The UK contact centre industry is a major employer, and there is considerable potential for the CWU to build on our existing presence in this sector.

There is an expected expansion in employment opportunities in the IT sector, and union membership in the sector is currently low. The CWU could look to expand and grow our activities in this area.

The CWU could explore ways of developing our communications strategy to support our organising activity.

With the right offer and approach, trade union representation has massive potential to appeal to young workers, who are disproportionately affected by low pay and insecure jobs. The CWU has an opportunity to communicate the benefits of union membership to young workers more effectively, and to provide a new and innovative membership offer that better suits their needs.

The CWU has more potential to give people a voice and campaign on issues that affect them, both in work and in their everyday lives. We could develop more digital tools and platforms to help recruit, support and lobby on behalf of a wider group of members.

THREATSUK trade union membership is in decline, posing a threat to the CWU and our movement as a whole.

Work is increasingly becoming decentralised, flexible, and non routine. Traditional methods of industrial unionism are unlikely to work well in this the new landscape.

Headcount reductions are expected to continue in Royal Mail as a result of competition, cost cutting and increased automation.

Other trade unions including Unite and the GMB are arguably ahead of the CWU in shaping their offering for workers in the new world of work.

A failure to recruit and organise casual workers in our core sectors risks undermining secure, better-paid, direct labour. The CWU’s age demographic is skewed towards older workers, with more than 90% of members aged over 30, which puts succession planning and future membership levels at risk as older members retire.

CWU INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPE SWOT ANALYSIS


POINTS FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION

The CWU must continue with our organising strategy of maximising membership levels in our core recognised areas, particularly in Royal Mail and BT.

The CWU should focus more on putting recruitment and organising at the heart of everything we do, working together across the union to strengthen our representative structures and fulfil our recruitment potential.

The CWU should strengthen our efforts to recruit and organise young members, women members and ethnic minority members.

The CWU should look seriously at how we can effectively recruit, organise and represent workers in the growing parcel delivery sector, including in UK Mail. This is likely to require some upfront investment, but could give the union an important platform for longer term membership growth.

The CWU should establish what kind of membership offer would be needed to attract and retain self-employed workers, including parcel couriers. This should include an assessment of how we would service these workers, and whether we would need to establish a dedicated resource or unit to take responsibility for this.

The CWU should put more investment into growing membership in contact centres and building a reputation as the leading union for contact centre workers in the UK.

The CWU should take a fresh look at how we can provide and market an improved offer for retired members.

The CWU should look at how we can best develop digital tools and platforms to attract and represent a wider group of members. This will help us to actively connect our industrial and political agendas, challenge employers and hold government to account.

The CWU should organise a regular meeting with other trade unions in our core sectors with the aim of building a better understanding of our respective organising priorities. This will assist us in targeting our resources effectively and avoiding competition or disputes with other unions.

The CWU should call on the TUC to help coordinate a planned approach to organising between unions.

The CWU should target members in companies outside of but related to our core areas. This could include companies in IT, data warehousing and the wider financial services sector.

The CWU should consider whether there is scope to build on our campaign for agency worker rights and use this to further promote CWU recruitment activities.

The CWU should continue to promote its new benefits and services package, and should ensure a much greater focus on regularly updating and improving membership services.

The CWU should look at how we can improve our offer to young members, by identifying innovative new services that would attract young people to join the CWU.

The CWU should consider introducing family membership, which for a small annual fee would provide additional benefits to existing members by extending a range of services to their wider family.

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11

02

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04

05


INTRODUCTION

It also looks at where other unions are targeting their recruitment activities and the kinds of strategies they use to organise and build membership.

With millions of jobs expected to be automated over the next two decades, the document considers the potential impact of computerisation and digitalisation on the labour market.

The aim of the document is to inform the debate on those companies and sectors the CWU should consider targeting in the future.

This paper examines the sectors in which the CWU organises and the potential for growth in companies both within and outside of our traditional areas.

The aim of the document is to inform the debate on those companies and sectors the CWU should consider targeting in the future.”


CHANGES IN THE UKLABOUR MARKET

The UK employment rate is 75.3%, the joint highest since comparable records began in 1971. After rising to 8.5% of the working-age population in 2011, unemployment has now dropped back down to 4.4%.

However, the labour market has witnessed a rapid rise in non-traditional, insecure and low paid forms of employment since the 2008 recession.

The number of people employed on a zero hours contract in their main job has risen from 143,000 in 2008 to 903,000 in late 2017.5

There are now over 800,000 agency workers, up by 25% since the financial crash.6

Nearly 5 million crowd workers in the UK are estimated to have found work through online platforms such as Uber and Upwork.7

The level of self-employment in the UK increased from 3.8 million in 20088 to 4.8 million in 2017 (representing 15.1% of all people in work).9 It is estimated that nearly half a million of those are falsely self-employed.

There are an estimated 3.2 million workers, one in ten of those working today, who face significant insecurity at work.10

Self-employed workers are not entitled to basic employment rights such as the minimum wage, and 45% of self-employed workers reportedly earn less than the statutory National Living Wage.11

As a consequence of these changes, levels of in-work poverty have risen dramatically, with 1.7 million more people affected now than in 2010-11 when the economic recovery began.There are a total of 8 million people, including 2.7 million children, living in poverty despite being in a working family.12

5 ONS Labour Force Survey, September 20176 The UK’s tight labour market and zero hours contracts, Resolution Foundation, 21 February 2018 7 UNI Europa, University of Hertfordshire, Feb 2016 8 Trends in self-employment in the UK: 2001 to 2017, ONS, 7 February 20189 UK Labour Market, March 2017, ONS, 15th March 2017 10 Living on the edge, the rise of job insecurity in modern Britain, TUC, December 201611 Revenue cracks down on false self-employment, Financial Times, 21st October 201612 UK Poverty 2017, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, December 2017

3.2 million workers

in insecure employment


In 2016 there were 505,061 people employed in the post and telecoms sectors combined. Of this, 329,240 were employed in the post and courier sector and 175,821 were employed in the telecoms sector. In the same year, there were 582,344 people employed in the financial services sector. These figures have fluctuated during the last few years, but are now broadly the same as they were in 2010.

The figures in themselves do not allow us to understand the nature of the jobs created or lost, such as whether they are or were full-time or part-time.

Year Post and courier services Telecommunications Post, courier

and telecoms Financial services*

2010 324,916 176,402 501,318 584,827

2011 301,828 169,456 471,284 571,468

2012 289,838 162,252 452,090 569,368

2013 305,149 168,780 473,929 554,060

2014 319,071 178,201 497,272 551,503

2015 317,152 180,689 499,760 547,142

2016 329,240 175,821 505,061 582,344

EMPLOYMENT IN POST, TELECOMSAND FINANCIAL SERVICES

Table 1: Employment in Post, Telecoms and Financial Services 2010 - 2016

20100

100,000

200,000

300,000

400,000

500,000

600,000

700,000Post and courier services

2011 2013 2012 2014 2015 2016

Post, courier and telecoms

Telecommunications

Financial services

Num

ber i

n em

ploy

men

t

*Includes banks, building societies and other financial intermediation, but excludes insurance and pension fundingSource: ONS commissioned data/Labour Force Survey

Table 2: Employment in Post, Telecoms and Financial Services 2010 - 2016

Source: ONS Commissioned Data/Labour Force Survey


THE CWU TODAY

Table 3 below details the CWU’s membership, income and expenditure levels since the union was created in 1995.

CWU membership fell by over 84,000 between the year the union was created and December 2016. This is a decline of over 30% from 275,055 in 1995 to 190,628 in 2016.

The union’s income, in the form of gross member contributions, has risen over this period, but has not kept pace with inflation. Gross member contributions increased by 21% between 1995 and the end of 2016 compared with a 74% increase in the RPI over the same period.

year ended31 Dec 16

year ended31 Dec 15

year ended 31 Dec 14



3 year ended 31 Dec 11



General Fund

Gross contributions from Members £29,797,836 £30,178,750 £30,414,525 £30,802,103 £9,776,936 £28,291,941 £27,837,454 £28,376,524

Less: Political Fund contributions (£1,655,035) (£1,680,292) (£1,717,177) (£1,728,523) (£1,663,041) (£881,185) (£909,582) (£958,636)

General Fund Net Income £19,430,129 £19,967,327 £20,248,585 £20,550,026 £19,815,671 £19,194,744 £18,952,315 £19,549,358

Expenditure (£20,026,720) (£20,528,769) (£17,732,957) (£18,050,833) (£17,687,828) (£18,082,522) (£19,056,231) (£20,661,102)

Membership at end of year 190,628 192,420 197,462 201,928 201,311 205,466 208,729 217,807

year ended31 Dec 08

year ended31 Dec 07







General Fund

Gross contributions from Members £28,434,017 £28,725,448 £27,924,531 £27,066,785 £26,498,167 £26,933,056 £27,663,641 £27,827,096

Less: Political Fund contributions (£997,718) (£1,042,798) (£1,061,855) (£1,061,033) (£1,073,642) (£1,138,926) (£1,194,627) (£1,241,543)

General Fund Net Income £19,504,986 £19,786,666 £19,354,506 £18,660,286 £19,562,762 £19,648,120 £20,267,069 £20,357,667

Expenditure (£18,807,063) (£17,285,264) (£15,591,455) (£15,189,880) (£17,066,078) (£19,624,966) (£21,113,496) (£21,618,462)

Membership at end of year 230,968 236,679 238,817 244,461 241,849 258,696 266,067 279,679

year ended31 Dec 00

year ended31 Dec 99





General Fund

Gross contributions from Members £27,381,622 £25,968,505 £25,224,459 £25,202,768 £24,816,773 £24,591,465

Less: Political Fund contributions (£1,248,003) (£1,266,700) (£1,229,099) (£1,194,829) (£1,022,461) (£963,390)

General Fund Net Income £20,114,074 £18,996,881 £18,759,609 £18,825,510 £18,460,622 £18,357,910

Expenditure (£19,108,712) (£19,242,542) (£18,410,785) (£18,879,785) (£17,871,396) (£19,261,622)

Membership at end of year 284,422 281,472 287,732 273,814 274,820 275,055

Source: CWU

Table 3: CWU Income and Expenditure 1995 - 2016


Table 4 below shows that while net income has remained relatively stable, expenditure has fluctuated.

Table 4: CWU Income and Expenditure 1995 – 2016

Table 5 below shows the decline in CWU’s membership since 1995. After a small increase and a number of stable years, membership has fallen steadily in the last 10 years, although the rate of decline has slowed in recent times.

Table 5: CWU Membership 1995 – 2016

0

50,000

31 Dec

96

31 Dec

97

31 Dec

98

31 Dec

99

31 Dec

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31 Dec

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31 Dec

02

31 Dec

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04

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31 Dec

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31 Dec

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31 Dec

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31 Dec

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31 Dec

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31 Dec

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31 Dec

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31 Dec

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100,000

150,000

200,000

250,000

300,000

350,000

Mem

bers

0

5,000,000

31 Dec

95

31 Dec

96

31 Dec

97

31 Dec

98

31 Dec

99

31 Dec

00

31 Dec

01

31 Dec

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10,000,000

15,000,000

20,000,000

25,000,000

£

30,000,000

35,000,000 General Fund Gross contributions from members

Expenditure

General Fund Net Income

Political Fund contributions


Membership

Around 6.2 million people in employment were trade union members in 2016, down from 7.0 million in 2007.

Trade union membership reached a peak of 13 million employees in 1979, before declining sharply through the 1980s and early 1990s. It stabilised at around 7 million between 1995 and 2007, and then fell to around 6.5 million in 2011 before falling further to reach its current level.

As employee numbers have risen, the proportion of employees who are trade union members fell slightly to 23.5% in 2016 from 24.7% in 2015. This is down from a membership rate of 32.4% in 1995.

Union density in the private sector was 13.4% in 2016, down from 13.9% in 2015 and 21.4% in 1995.

Union density in the public sector was 51.7% in 2016, down from 54.8% in 2015 and 61.3% in 1995.

Female employees are more likely to be a trade union member. The proportion of female employees who are in a trade union was around 25.9% in 2016, compared with 21.1% of male employees.

Ethnic minorities are underrepresented in union membership, making up 9.8% of all trade union members compared with 11.8% of all in employment.

Older workers account for a larger proportion of union members than young workers. Union members over 50 years old represent 39.1% of all members, whilst union members under 24 years old represent just 4.7% of all members.

The TUC is made up of 49 affiliated unions and represents around 6.2 million members. The CWU remains its 8th largest union.

TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP AND FINANCES

Table 6: Trade union membership of largest TUC affiliates 2010 – 2016

Source: Certification Officer

Union 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010

Unite 1,137,468 1,382,000 1,405,000 1,424,000 1,510,000 1,515,000 1,573,000

Unison 1,225,000 1,256,000 1,270,000 1,302,000 1,318,000 1,375,000 1,375,000

GMB 617,213 623,000 626,000 613,000 610,000 602,000 602,000

Usdaw 429,463 441,000 435,000 426,000 412,000 399,000 387,000

NUT N/A 372,000 376,000 388,000 387,000 375,000 377,000

NASUWT 286,541 321,000 330,000 337,000 339,000 327,000 327,000

PCS 185,785 195,000 231,000 263,000 281,000 292,000 302,000

CWU 191,424 192,000 197,000 202,000 201,000 205,000 209,000

Table 6 shows membership levels in the largest TUC affiliated unions.


Table 7a: Union membership 2000 to 2016 ('000)

Union 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000

Unite* 1,137 1,382 1,405 1,424 1,510 1,515 1,573 1,635 1,952 1,938 1,957 1,967 1,889 2,147 2,235 2,298 2,376

Unison 1,225 1,256 1,270 1,302 1,318 1,375 1,375 1,362 1,344 1,343 1,317 1,310 1,301 1,289 1,273 1,272 1,272

GMB 617 623 626 613 610 602 602 601 590 576 575 572 600 704 689 684 694

USDAW 429 441 435 426 412 399 387 371 356 341 341 340 332 321 310 310 310

PCS 186 195 231 263 281 292 302 300 305 312 313 311 295 286 282 268 258

CWU 191 192 197 202 201 205 209 218 231 237 239 244 242 259 266 280 284

Not all unions are TUC affiliated. Around 900,000 people are members of unions which do not affiliate to the TUC. The largest of these is the Royal College of Nursing with over 415,000 members.

Table 7a below shows membership levels in the six largest TUC affiliated unions between 2000 and 2016. The data shows significant membership decline for the CWU and Unite and a more mixed picture for the GMB, Unison and PCS whose memberships have fluctuated. Usdaw’s membership has shown the strongest growth through this period.

Table 7b is a diagrammatic version of the same data. This is useful in demonstrating the scale of declining membership that has affected some of the largest TUC affiliated organisations.

Table 7b: Union membership 2000 - 2016

0

500

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

1000

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bers

(00

0s)

2000

2500CWU

PCS

GMB

Unite (or constituent unions)

Unison

USDAW

*or constituent unionsSource: Certification Officer



Union 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000

Unite* 173016 165424 160992 164391 156880 163000 151834 151298 112499 173097 172660 172967 151443 180368 178546 177219 178561

Unison 164487 201724 168818 181688 204400 186973 181467 176486 176960 168149 158961 145049 132771 124749 121564 117707 110033

GMB 71516 71241 63085 64679 65727 74863 58507 58711 92169 61849 52903 52472 47857 47252 47655 46319 46388

USDAW 37761 40257 38242 45069 42847 40808 39112 36607 35699 39665 32406 30024 28112 25105 23164 22608 20430

PCS 37962 33222 37314 29693 21415 51101 19705 14839 34988 51655 31819 31538 26782 21817 28751 22532 25306

CWU 29465 31204 29670 30478 28858 36967 29207 29286 29705 29187 28446 27402 27954 28368 28529 28141 28551

Table 8b: Union total income 2000 to 2016

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

CWU

PCS

GMB

Unison

USDAW

0

50000

100000

150000

£ 00

0

200000

250000

Unite (or constituent unions)

Table 8a shows the total income of the same TUC affiliates over the same period. Changes in income can sometimes serve as a more reliable indicator of a union’s strength than its membership figures. The impact of windfalls either from investments or the sale of assets such as buildings can have a profound effect. Both the GMB and PCS have experienced extreme financial fluctuations at various points in this 15 year period.

Table 8b illustrates graphically the state of union finances since 2000.

Table 8a: Union total income 2000 to 2016 (£000s)

* or constituent unions Source: Certification Officer



At the end of December 2017, CWU membership stood at 191,424: an increase of 0.4% against the previous year. This can be largely attributed to an upturn at the time of the Royal Mail industrial action ballot, but outside of this period CWU membership continued to fall. Although there have been other years when CWU membership has grown (1998, 2000, 2005, 2013), the overall trend has been one of decline, with membership falling by 30.4% since 1995.

To have an understanding of how CWU membership levels may change in future years, we have plotted the following five different membership scenarios based on past trends.

[1] Projects membership on the basis of the change seen between 1995, when the CWU was created, and the end of 2017.

[2] Sees the change based on the figures from 2000 to the end of 2017.

[3] Shows the projection using 2010 as a base point.

[4] Shows the projection based on the change in membership from 2015 to 2016.

Finally, [5] shows the membership projection based on the change in membership between 2015 and 2017.

The following figures are projections only and are included for illustrative purposes.

CWU MEMBERSHIP FORECASTS

[1] 95 to 17 [2] 00 to 17 [3] 10 to 17 [4] 15 to 16 [5] 15 to 17

Av annual % change -1.38% -1.92% -1.18% -0.94% -0.52%

Multiplier 0.9862 0.9808 0.9882 0.9906 0.9948

2017 191,424 191,424 191,424 191,424 191,424

2018 188,778 187,742 189,157 189,622 190,428

2019 186,169 184,131 186,916 187,838 189,437

2020 183,596 180,590 184,703 186,070 188,452

2021 181,059 177,116 182,515 184,319 187,471

2022 178,557 173,710 180,353 182,584 186,496

2023 176,089 170,369 178,217 180,865 185,525

2024 173,655 167,092 176,107 179,163 184,560

Table 9a - CWU Membership Projections 2017-2024

CWU membership could fall to between 167,092 and 184,560 by 2024 based on past trends.”

Source: CWU


160,000

170,000

175,000

185,000

195,000

165,000

2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024

180,000

Num

ber

of C

WU

Mem

bers

190,000

95 to 17

10 to 17

00 to 17

15 to 16

15 to 17

The membership figures do not reflect the average financial contribution for each member. It is important to understand if an increasing percentage of our membership pays less than the headline rate of subscriptions. Table 9c provides this information on the split between those paying the full rate of subscriptions and those not, for the period 2010 to 2017.

Table 9c – CWU Membership by Subscription plan 2010-2017

Table 9b: CWU Membership Projections 2017 – 2024

The above table illustrates that concerns about the “hollowing out” of the CWU’s full-rate subscription base is somewhat justified given the significant differences in income that can be derived from different subscription plans. The proportion of members paying the full subscription rate has fallen from 68.5% in 2010 to 66.5% in 2017.

Structural change in the union’s core recognised companies has had a significant impact both on membership and potential membership levels. Employee levels in BT have fallen

from 132,000 in 1995 to 82,800 full time equivalent in 2017. This figure rose from around 70,000 in 2015 due to BT’s acquisition of mobile operator EE. In 1995 Royal Mail employed 189,000 full time employees. In 2017 the company’s year end headcount was 141,800, and it employed 148,170 people on a full time equivalent basis.

Source: CWU

Source: CWU

Year Total Membership Plan 1 % plan 1 Other Plans % other

Dec-10 208,384 142,883 68.57% 65,501 31.43%

Dec-11 204,362 142,689 69.82% 61,673 30.18%

Dec-12 201,311 140,359 69.72% 60,952 30.28%

Dec-13 201,928 140,326 69.49% 61,602 30.51%

Dec-14 197,462 137,091 69.43% 60,371 30.57%

Dec-15 192,420 131,821 68.51% 60,599 31.49%

Dec-16 190,609 129,129 67.75% 61,480 32.25%

Dec-17 191,424 127,330 66.52% 64,094 33.48%


Overall trade union density in the UK is continuing to fall, standing at 23.5% in 2016 down 1.2% from the previous year and down 3.1% from 2010.

There continues to be a marked difference between trade union density in the public and private sectors, with density almost four times as high in the former than the latter.

Year Public sector % Private sector % All %

2000 60.3 18.8 29.8

2001 59.7 18.4 29.3

2002 59.8 17.7 28.8

2003 59.4 18.2 29.3

2004 58.8 17.3 28.8

2005 58.2 16.9 28.6

2006 58.7 16.6 28.3

2007 59.0 16.1 28.0

2008 57.1 15.5 27.4

2009 56.6 15.1 27.4

2010 56.3 14.2 26.6

2011 56.6 14.2 26.0

2012 56.3 14.4 26.0

2013 55.4 14.4 25.6

2014 54.3 14.2 25.0

2015 54.8 13.9 24.7

2016 51.7 13.4 23.5

The big picture

Table 10a Trade union density in the UK

TRADE UNION DENSITY

51.7% Public sector union density

13.4% Private sector union density

Source: Labour Force Survey, Office for National Statistics



2000 74.2 22.5 36.4

2001 72.6 21.9 35.5

2002 73.6 21.1 35.2

2003 71.6 21.9 35.5

2004 71.2 20.5 34.7

2005 70.9 20.6 34.9

2006 69.0 19.6 33.3

2007 72.0 20.0 34.6

2008 70.5 18.7 33.7

2009 68.2 17.8 32.7

2010 64.5 16.9 30.9

2011 67.8 17.0 31.2

2012 63.7 16.1 29.3

2013 63.8 16.6 29.5

2014 60.7 15.4 27.5

2015 60.7 16.1 27.9

2016 59.0 14.9 26.3


2000 87.8 34.9 48.9

2001 88.1 34.0 48.2

2002 88.3 33.6 48.0

2003 87.1 34.1 48.4

2004 86.8 32.6 47.6

2005 86.4 32.4 47.7

2006 86.7 31.7 47.0

2007 86.2 31.5 46.6

2008 86.9 30.6 46.7

2009 85.9 30.3 46.7

2010 85.8 29.7 46.1

2011 87.1 28.5 44.9

2012 86.4 28.5 44.6

2013 85.4 28.7 44.2

2014 84.9 28.1 43.3

2015 84.0 28.0 42.7

2016 83.0 26.7 41.1

Table 10b: Pay or conditions affected by collective agreement (UK)

Table 10b shows what many consider to be the most important measure of trade union influence and that is the percentage of workers whose pay or conditions are affected by collectively-bargained agreements. This figure is higher than that for trade union density, but not to a great degree.

Table 10c: Non-union members with a trade union presence in the workplace (UK)




Table 10c shows the percentage of non-union members that nevertheless have a trade union presence in their workplace. This is clearly important in understanding what numerical basis trade unions have to expand their membership and also the scope of collective bargaining. It is therefore encouraging that, taken across the economy as a whole, more than 41% of non-union members report a trade union presence in their workplace. Given that the vast majority of workplaces are now small and medium-sized enterprises, this achievement should not be overlooked. However, the ongoing decline illustrates the challenges facing trade unions regardless of the sector(s) they organise in.

Tables 10a, b and c illustrate the steady decline in union power that has taken place over the previous 16 years, with only 2003 bucking a remorseless downward trend. This has led some commentators to conclude that trade unionism is facing an existential threat as the coverage of collective bargaining reaches ever lower levels.

Trade Union Density – Post, Telecoms and Financial Services

The government collects statistics on trade union density as part of the Labour Force Survey. Three questions are asked of those surveyed:

i. Whether the person is a trade union member;ii. If they are not a union member is there a trade union presence in their workplace;iii. Are their terms and conditions affected by collective bargaining?

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes this data for the UK as a whole under broad sectoral headings. The union has commissioned bespoke data from ONS on union membership in the post and courier sector, the telecoms sector and the financial services sector.

Tables 11a, 11b and 11c show the movement in union membership over these sectors over the last 11 years.

Table 11a shows union membership density in post, telecoms and financial services. It shows that until 2011 all three sectors were tracking the trend in the economy as a whole with an overall decline in union membership density numbers.

In the postal sector, density levels have been liable to fluctuation since 2011, but the last ten years has seen an overall decline from around 54% in 2006 to 40% in 2016. This is the result of changes in the market such as the growth of unregulated parcel companies and couriers working on a flexible basis.

In the telecoms sector, membership density has risen slightly in the last year. However, the overall trend has also been one of decline over the last decade, falling from around 36% in 2006 to 24% in 2016.

There are a variety of possible explanations for this, including reduced impact of a greatly downsized but still heavily unionised BT on employment in the sector, combined with the casualisation of the workforce, traditionally a barrier to trade union organisation.

Union density in the financial services sector has fluctuated over the last five years but has continued to fall and is lower than in the post and telecoms sectors.

0

10

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

20

30%

40

50

60Post & Courier

Financial Services

Telecoms

Whole Economy

Table 11a: Union membership density 2005 to 2016

Source: ONS Commissioned Data / Labour Force Survey


Table 11b: Employees' terms and conditions affected by collective agreements 2005-2016

Table 11b shows the percentage of employees’ terms and conditions affected by collective agreements over the same 11 year period. Again for the most part of this period the trend in postal, telecoms and finance sectors tracks that in the whole economy and shows a gradual decline. Since 2011/12, the trend has been less steady than in previous years with coverage fluctuating, but still falling overall.

Finally, table 11c shows the percentage of non-union members in the workplace that report a union presence.

Generally speaking, despite peaks and troughs, the overall trend over the last 11 years across the post and courier, and financial service sectors is consistent with the economy as a whole. However, the telecoms sector has a lower proportion of non-union members in workplaces with a union presence, though this has grown in the past three years after falling for five years.

Source: ONS Commissioned Data/ Labour Force Survey

Source: ONS Commissioned Data/ Labour Force Survey

0

10

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

20

30

% 40

50

60

70

80Post & Courier

Financial Services

Telecoms

Whole Economy

0

10

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

20

30%

40

50

60

Financial Services

Telecoms

Post & Courier

Whole Economy

Table 11c: Non-union members in a workplace with a union presence 2005-2016


Table 12a CWU density in the post and courier sector

Table 12b CWU density in the telecoms sector

Table 12c CWU density in the post and courier and telecoms sectors

* excludes retired membersSource for all tables: ONS Commissioned Data/Labour Force Survey and CWU.

CWU MEMBERSHIP DENSITY IN THE POSTAND TELECOMS SECTORS

Using the employment figures provided by ONS, and reported above, we can calculate a rough estimate of CWU density in the post and courier and telecoms sectors.

Thus, in the post and courier sector, table 12a shows a CWU density of 36.4%, which is down from 38.3% in 2014. Total density in the sector is 40% according to the ONS (as shown in Table 11a), reflecting the presence of other unions organising there.

In the telecoms sector, table 12b shows a CWU density of 30.9%, down from 31.8% in 2014. Total density in the sector is just 24% according to the ONS (as shown in Table 11a), a disparity that reflects different methodologies and the presence of CWU members who are not included in the ONS definition of “telecoms”.13

Overall, in the combined post and courier and telecoms sectors, table 12c shows a CWU membership density of 34.5% with an estimated 330,677 non-members.

2016 2014

Total employed in UK post and courier sector 329,240 318,130

Total CWU postal membership* 120,000 122,000

Density % 36.4% 38.3%

Non CWU members 209,240 196,130

2016 2014

Total employed in UK telecoms sector 175,821 179,341

Total CWU telecoms membership (excludes financial services)* 54,384 57,000

Density % 30.9% 31.8%


2016 2014

Total employed in UK post and courier, and telecoms sectors 505,061 497,471

Total CWU membership* 174,384 179,000

Density % 34.5% 36%


13 The 24% density figure was calculated using a small sample size


14 UK Mail driver who was unable to work after car accident charged £800, The Guardian, 19 March 2017

POTENTIAL NEW TARGET COMPANIES IN THE POST AND TELECOMS SECTORS

The following section profiles a number of companies in the postal and telecoms sectors that the CWU could begin to target for membership growth, or that we could target more actively where we already have a presence. Company profile: UK MailActivitiesUK Mail is a postal service company offering upstream collection, sorting and delivery services across the UK. In September 2016 it was acquired by Deutsch Post DHL. The business delivers and collects over 3 billion mail items and 50 million parcels per annum. The latest data shows the company made pre-tax profits of £14.4 million in the financial year to March 2016, down from £20.1 million the previous year. The fall in profits was due to operational problems associated with the move to a new automated hub in Ryton, which is now reportedly operating well..

Table 13: UK Mail Group plc revenue and profit 2013/14 – 2015/16

EmployeesUK Mail has over 4,000 people working in more than 50 depots. Since 2013, the number of people working for UK Mail has risen by almost two-thirds and the business remains poised for further growth in the future.

LocationsUK Mail has an extensive delivery network covering the whole of the UK, and its 50+ depots are located all over the country, from Inverness to Redruth, and the Isle of Man to Ipswich.

Employment practicesLike many of Royal Mail’s competitors, UK Mail relies heavily on the labour of self-employed owner drivers. Although officially classed as self-employed, these workers have many of the characteristics of employees and are thus likely to be falsely self-employed.

UK Mail workers are paid a piece rate worked out by the number of stops made per round and the number and weight of packages delivered. As a result they are placed under tremendous pressure to work long shifts, with lengths of over 12 hours widely reported, and work across long distances, with some rounds covering over 70 miles. Similarly, given the complex system used to determine payment, there are many reports of drivers being under paid. In addition, many drivers have reported that their hourly rate is below the National Minimum Wage. In March 2017, it was reported that UK Mail charges its couriers £216 a day to hire a replacement when they are off sick.14

In February 2018, it was reported that DHL/UK Mail imposed a 4% pay cut on its couriers, equating to around £2,000 per year. More than 20 drivers at various depots refused to accept the cut, and were subsequently sacked. The GMB has written to the company demanding an urgent meeting, and at the time of writing (early March 2018) its members are talking about the possibility of strike action.

Trade union presenceThe CWU is not aware of any other trade unions organising extensively in UK Mail to date. However, the imposition of a pay cut in DHL/UK Mail has prompted the GMB to act on behalf of drivers in both DHL and UK Mail, and this may lead to a greater focus by the GMB on organising UK Mail workers.

CWU activityIn recognition of the circumstances described above and the growing number of people employed by UK Mail, a concerted CWU organising effort has been proposed in order to build on our existing presence in the company. The union aims to grow our membership, improve workplace conditions and address the issue of false self-employment in the business.

Financial year 2015/16 Financial year 2014/15 Financial year 2013/14

Revenue £481.0 million £485.1 million £481.4 million

Operating profit £14.9 million £20.1 million £21.8 million

Profit before tax £14.4 million £20.1 million £21.9 million


False self-employment vs genuine self-employmentThe genuinely self-employed are in business on their own account, offering services to their clients and customers and in control of their activities at work. Inherent within the status of self-employment are diminished rights at work. For example, the self-employed are not entitled to the national minimum wage, sick or holiday pay, or automatic enrolment for tax and National Insurance.

False self-employment refers to those workers who despite being self-employed have little control or autonomy over their affairs at work. Such misclassification is used by employers to circumvent basic work place rights and means that workers suffer the downsides of self-employment, without enjoying its benefits. For example, falsely self-employed workers are not entitled to the statutory minimum wage, and they typically have no freedom to decide what work they do or to plan their working day.

Parcel delivery sector

UK parcel volumes are growing strongly on the back of a booming e-commerce market. As a result, we are seeing more intense competition in the sector as operators like Hermes, Yodel and DPD position themselves to capture market share. Unlike Royal Mail, these unregulated parcel operators are not accountable to minimum quality standards. They generally use low cost operating models and rely on self-employed owner drivers or ‘lifestyle couriers’ who have no job security and many have reported that they earn below the minimum wage.

On the back of their low cost strategy, Royal Mail’s competitors are competing well on price and generally growing in the marketplace. Hermes, for example, delivers over 260 million parcels each year and is contracted to some of the UK’s largest online retailers, including JD Williams and Debenhams. It saw its turnover grow by 78% from £317 million in 2013 to £564 million in 2017. Its gross profit grew by 45% from £53 million to £77 million over the same period.

The following pages provide details of some of the key parcel delivery companies in the UK. Taking just Hermes, Yodel and Amazon alone, the data indicates that there are over 30,000 workers in this sector who are falsely self-employed. Although other unions are making efforts to build up membership in some of these companies, indications are no union has yet secured a major presence in the unregulated parcel delivery sector.


Owner drivers or ‘lifestyle couriers’No. of employees/workers:

15,000

Predominant employment model:

Self-employed owner drivers/ or ‘lifestyle couriers’

Main occupation/s:

Drivers

Pay and conditions summary:

Maximum payment is reported to be 80 pence per parcel delivered, but piece rates vary by parcel size and 50 pence is more typical according to reports from couriers.

Additionally, Hermes drivers are responsible for expenses including fuel, car insurance and maintenance.As a result, there have been reports that take home pay routinely comes to less than the statutory National Minimum Wage.

Other union representation:

Usdaw and GMB

Location:

UK wide

Recruitment challenges:

Usdaw has reportedly been unable to recruit enough ‘self-employed’ couriers to have any real influence over pay and conditions, despite being approached by the couriers eight years ago.

GMB has launched legal action against Hermes on behalf of its lifestyle couriers, potentially making it more difficult for other unions to lay claim to these workers.

Manual and non -manual distribution workersNo. of employees/workers:

660


Employees

Main occupation/s:

Manual and non manual distribution workers


Pay ranges from £7.77per hour for a night loader to £11.00per hour LGV driver Hours – 44-48 per weekAnnual leave – 21 – 29 days per annumMaternity/paternity leave: statutory.


Usdaw is recognised by Hermes for this group of workers.

Location:

Dunstable, Peterborough, Rochester, Southampton, Sheffield, Bradford


N/A

Potential target companies in the parcel delivery sectorCompany:

Hermes


Company:

AmazonNo. of employees/workers:

7,700


A mixture of permanent and agency warehouse workers.

Amazon logistics relies on independent contractors to provide its delivery services, and reportedly requires its drivers to be self-employed.

Main occupation/s:

Warehousing and drivers


Warehouse workers are reportedly paid £8.23 per hour, whilst pay for order pickers and packers ranges from £7.86 to £9.54 per hour.It is reported that Amazon drivers “can earn between £28,527 and £30,994” per annum, however, this is based on the accruing bonuses and hitting targets.

Amazon reports that its ‘Flex’ drivers are paid £12-15 per hour, but this is not guaranteed and depends on the number of parcels delivered and in what time. Flex drivers have reported taking home less than £8 per hour and being underpaid by ‘cowboy’ contractors.


Though the GMB represents some Amazon warehouse workers there is no evidence to suggest it has a base among drivers.

However, it was reported in April 2017 that the GMB was taking legal action against UK Express Delivery, which delivers for Amazon, over the issue of bogus self employment.

In March 2018, UK Express Delivery reportedly settled with drivers to avoid going to tribunal, paying 100% of the amounts claimed.

Location:

UK-wide with major depots in Swansea, Hemel Hempstead, Dunstable, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Rugely, Manchester, Leicester, Doncaster, Dunfermline and Gourock.


Amazon has a long track-record of preventing unions from organising openly and accessing sites has proven difficult. Additionally, the casualised nature of driver contracts, hours etc. makes organising in the traditional fashion a challenging process.

Company:

YodelNo. of employees/workers:

8,000


Self-employed/owner driver

Main occupation/s:

Drivers


Self-employed drivers are paid approx. £0.70 per parcel; however this is subject to some variation. For example, some drivers have reported receiving as little as £0.60 per parcel.

In an average 6 day week drivers anticipate earning between £200 and £250.

However, there is no minimum guarantee. Indeed, there are many reports of couriers receiving below the National Minimum Wage. Drivers must also provide their own vehicle, insurance and fuel.

Warehousing staff are reported to be paid between National Minimum Wage and £8.25 per hour.


GMB and Usdaw


Given Yodel drivers are self-employed and may cycle in and out of employment for short periods, it is difficult to organise through traditional means.

Similarly, given that collective agreements are not yet possible the ‘offer’ to these workers may need to be adjusted to reflect their needs e.g. advice on clarifying their legal status and access to entitlements and support with personal taxation.


Company:

DPDNo. of employees/workers:

6,700


Owner drivers

Main occupation/s:

Drivers


DPD describe their salary offer as “competitive”, but like other competitors they rely predominantly on a low cost self-employed workforce. Drivers have reported that: they may be “stood down” from future shifts should they refuse to take on a delivery; though they are compensated for fuel they must pay VAT costs; and drivers are charged every four weeks to lease their vehicles. Importantly, many drivers are paid less than the National Minimum Wage and stringent limits are placed on the delivery routes taken by drivers – illustrating that they are very much self-employed in name only.

Drivers are charged £150 a day when absent and cannot find replacement cover. DPD is now facing a customer backlash following the death of a courier who missed hospital appointments to avoid being fined. The case has also increased pressure on the Government to urgently address poor quality work in Britain.


The GMB has begun recruiting DPD drivers. It has report-edly recruited more than 100 couriers in Scotland who withdrew their labour for a day in December 2017 in pro-test at unilateral changes to their contracts and against the £150 fines.

The GMB is supporting an employment tribunal claim brought by DPD couriers arguing they are bogusly self-employed and should be treated as workers.

Location:

Nationwide


DPD drivers are treated as self-employed and organising them presents similar challenges to those in other parcel operators.


Company profile: Capita PLCActivitiesCapita PLC offers business process outsourcing (BPO) and professional support services from back office administration to front office customer contact services. It provides services to both the public sector - central government, local government, education, health, justice, emergency services and defence, and the private sector - life and pensions, insurance, financial services, retail, utilities and telecoms. Capita PLC is the leading player in the UK BPO market with a market share of 26.9%. However, Capita issued a profit warning in February 2018 and saw billions wiped of its shares amid concerns it could face a similar fate to collapsed contractor Carillion. Capita has had to take radical action in its attempt to rectify this situation, announcing a £700m rights issue, an asset disposal plan and a strategic review.

Capita PLC signed a strategic partnership with Telefonica UK (O2) in 2013 for 10 years for customer management services, and Updata Infrastructure and SSE Enterprise Telecoms in 2016 for 7 years. This is to improve the regional network footprint of SSE Enterprise Telecoms and provide Updata and Capita with a national optical network for major outsourcing projects.

In the telecoms sector, due to the increasing ease of customers switching suppliers, Capita PLC has expanded its outsourcing opportunities from services into sales and retention, offering telecoms companies better management of customer engagement. Capita PLC claims it can lower support costs, improve the customer experience and increase revenue.

Number of employeesCapita PLC employed 75,000 people in 2016, up from 70,000 in 2015. Over 70% of staff came from acquisitions or TUPE transfers.

Table 14: Capita PLC revenue and profit 2014 - 2016

Financial year 2016 Financial year 2015 Financial year 2014

Revenue £4,898 million £4,674 million £4,372 million

Operating profit £422 million £475 million £430 million

Reported profit before tax £72 million* £273 million* £317 million

*Decrease due to £309 million of non-underlying charges, primarily the reduction in the value of intangible assets and in life and pension assets.

Despite the increase in revenue in 2016, pre-tax profit fell 74% to £72 million. The 2016 revenue is divided between the public and private sector - 47%:53% respectively. Of the private sector revenue, the utilities and telecoms sector generated 11% in 2016.

LocationsCapita PLC primarily operates in the UK, with its Head Office located in London. It has 80 multi-service delivery centres in the UK, Ireland and Channel Islands and a further 14 worldwide, with an additional 500 business sites, predominantly in the UK, Ireland, and Northern Europe. In Australia, Capita Communications and Control Solutions have a partnership with Fujitsu to offer emergency services systems.

Employment practicesCapita PLC has an equality and diversity policy, a speak-up policy, a human rights policy and a modern slavery policy. Capita’s corporate culture website states that the company “recognises a healthy, motivated workforce is good for business”. Capita PLC offers an apprenticeship programme and a 2 year graduate programme. In 2017, staff on the Telefonica contract were awarded a pay rise of 2.0%, which was in line with average pay settlements for the whole economy.

Trade Union presenceThere are 15 trade unions recognised at Capita including CWU, Unite, PCS, UNISON, GMB, Prospect and TSSA. PCS organise in central government services and UNISON in the local government and health sectors. Prospect’s members are predominantly in DEFRA’s science agency. Unite’s membership is more diverse – whilst it is concentrated in insurance services and banking, there are pockets within IT services (Enterprise Services) and employee benefits. The GMB has some members in Dixons Carphone. With the CWU recognised in customer management at O2, BBC and Tesco Mobile, there are certainly opportunities for organising and recruiting within other customer management partnership organisations, including Samsung, as well as in the digital and software solutions and IT services strands.


Company profile: Teleperformance LtdActivitiesTeleperformance Ltd offers business process outsourcing (BPO), specialising in multichannel customer experience management. The parent company is a French company, Teleperformance SE which currently operates in 340 contact centres in 74 countries, up from 270 centres in 46 countries in 2013. In 2017, it employed 217,000 people worldwide and its revenue was €4.180 billion.

In the UK, Teleperformance Ltd provides services to both the public and the private sector, with clients in automotive, consumer electronics, financial services, government, health care, insurance, media, retail, technology, telecoms, travel and utilities. Services include customer service, customer relationship management, visa application services, biometric data collection, customer acquisition, back office processing, debt collection, multilingual services, social media and technical support. Teleperformance considers itself the biggest pure play outsourced contact centre provider in the UK market.

Teleperformance currently has contracts with Aviva, Clydesdale Yorkshire Bank Group, Liberty Insurance, Ralph Lauren and Volkswagen in the private sector and the Home Office, the Department of Health and the Environment Agency in the public sector.

Number of employeesTeleperformance Ltd employs over 8,000 people according to their web site. Their company annual reports declare 7,798 employees in 2016, 6,975 in 2015 and 7,519 in 2014.

Table 15: Teleperformance Ltd revenue and profit 2014 - 2016

Financial year 2016 Financial year 2015 Financial year 2014

Revenue £195,350,000 £181,183,000 £174,523,000

Operating profit £9,200,000 £10,389,000 £10,319,000

Profit for financial year £6,440,000 £6,896,000 £6,826,000

Turnover has increased year on year since 2012, rising by 4% in 2015, by 13% in 2014 and by 5% in 2013. This is due to new business, growth from the existing client base and off-shoring to Portugal, France, Egypt and South Africa. Operating profit fell in 2013 but has recovered in subsequent years.

LocationsThe Head Office is based in Bristol and there are a further 19 sites in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In England, there are sites at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Gateshead, Newark, Norwich and Swindon; in Northern Ireland at Bangor, Enniskillen and Newry; and in Scotland at Aidrie, Bishopbriggs, Erskine, Glasgow (multiple locations), Kilmarnock, Linlithgow and Perth.

Employment practicesTeleperformance Ltd claims to be committed to career development, offering NVQs and an in-house Advisor Development Course to all staff. There is a leadership programme for Team Leaders and funding for relevant external courses.

The standard working week is 37.5 hours. Most advertised jobs are permanent with starting salaries for Customer Sales Advisors and Customer Service Advisors of up to £15,500 plus bonus. The average wage for a customer service advisor in 2018 was £14,423. Customer Support Engineer roles pay a starting salary of up to £21,000. There are additional payments for language skills with starting salaries rising to £17,000. Salaries for some contracts pay a higher rate, such as the Aviva contract. Aviva is a fully accredited Living Wage employer ensuring contractors also receive the Living Wage. There are staff forums on each site for employee engagement and involvement.

Trade Union presenceDespite there being a significant trade union presence in Teleperformance companies in mainland Europe, notably France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Finland, density levels in the UK are low and estimated to be less than 5%.

There are some Unite members in Teleperformance, for example, amongst the former Language Line operation, which was purchased in August 2016 and includes British Sign Language interpreters and amongst the workers from Boots who were transferred in 2007. There were TSSA members working on the Southern contract who were transferred under TUPE in 2010. PCS took strike action in January 2012 over some of the HMRC’s contact centre operations being taken over by Teleperformance but this did not involve the transfer of any staff.

The CWU has members in the company, including former employees of Vodafone in Northern Ireland who were transferred to Teleperformance, leading to an industrial dispute in 2012.


POTENTIAL FOR CWU MEMBERSHIP GROWTHOUTSIDE THE POST AND TELECOMS SECTORS

Market Subdivision Value in 2015 Share of market

IT sector overall €1,321 billion

IT services & software €992 billion 75.1%

Internet services €329 billion 24.9%

IT services & software IT services €744 billion 75%

IT software €248 billion 25%

Source of figures: UNI Global Union. January 2017. State of play in the IT sector.

8%

33%

8%13%

38%

Consulting

Software support

Development & integration

Hardware maintenance & support

IT outsourcing

25%

19%

15%

13%

28%Cloud activities

Mobile applications

Search activities

E-commerce commissions

Social media, digitalcontent & online gaming

32%

37%

31%Applications

Vertical specific software

Infrastructure

Segmentation of IT Services

Segmentation of Internet Services

Segmentation of IT Software

IT SectorThe global IT market is expected to grow 25% by 2020 as private investment in key technologies increases, with the most rapid growth predicted in Internet services. A summary of the value and market segmentation the current global IT sector is below.

Table 16: Global IT sector value and market segmentation


The trend in IT companies is to reduce hardware activities and/or to outsource them to cheaper countries, in favour of expanding new technologies. These include: mobility; big data; cloud computing; virtual reality; artificial intelligence; robotics; the Internet of Things; security. Two companies with CWU membership have realigned in this way. Fujitsu has shifted into big data and collaborative workplace mobile solutions and HP has refocused on mobile services, big data and security. Security is also a priority area for Accenture, along with an expansion into analytics and cloud services.

The impact of automation on IT jobsThis sector is not immune to predicted job losses due to automation. A report by PWC in March 2017 estimates that up to 30% of all current UK jobs are at high risk of potential automation by 2030, including 390,000 jobs in information and communication (27.3% of current jobs in the sector) and 780,000 professional, scientific and technical workers (25.6%).15 However, this sector is expected to be more resilient than others and whilst traditional jobs disappear, new jobs will be created as a result of technological developments. This change has already started to take place as job market analysis shows. In 2013, 6% of all UK jobs, rising to 10% in London, were job types that did not exist in 1990 and are concentrated in new digital technologies for computing and communications.16

There is an expected expansion in employment opportunities at both the lower and higher end of the skills spectrum in the sector, from basic data entry to graduate-level engineers. Information technology in the UK has a projected growth of 13.9% and the creation of 153,000 new jobs by 2024.17

Trade union membership in ITCurrent trade union membership levels in the IT industry are low. Despite professional occupations having the highest proportion of trade union membership amongst the occupation groups, at 41.6%,18 the IT sector has some of the lowest levels of trade union membership of any sector. In 2016, 10.1% of information and communications workers were trade union members, 8.3% of professional, scientific and technical workers19 and just 3.5% of workers in computer programming and consultancy.20

Prospect is the predominant union for professional IT occupations and operates in several employers where the CWU has members, including Computacenter and Fujitsu. Additionally, Unite represents workers in the IT industry and has a section for the graphical, paper, media and information technology industries, representing workers in software development, design, desk support, servicing and systems development, telecommunications, electronic data processing and storage. PCS also represents a small number of IT workers, formerly in the civil service and government agencies, now outsourced to the private sector.

Data WarehousingThe increasing reliance on digital data storage and retrieval means there is expected to be continued growth in the market for data warehousing solutions. There was significant investment in European data centres in 2016, and the UK is currently Europe’s biggest data centre market. The CWU already has members in Digital Realty, which recently signed a new improved recognition agreement with the union after acquiring eight Telecity data centre hubs in 2016. There are a number of other employers in this space including Equinix, and there may be some potential for the CWU to grow membership in this area.

Finance SectorThe UK’s financial and related professional services industry currently employs over 2.2 million people and is responsible for 10.7% of the UK’s economic output.21 In April 2016, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills predicted significant growth in the sector between 2014 and 2024. However, automation and off-shoring are both significant threats to employment opportunities, with Brexit creating additional challenges, in a sector that had already contracted as a result of the 2008 economic crisis.

15 PWC. March 2017. UK economic outlook.16 PWC 2017, ibid.17 UK Commission for Employment and Skills. April 2016. Working futures 2014-202418 Trade Union Membership Statistics 2016, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, May 2017, table 1.7b.19 BEIS 2017, ibid, table 1.8.20 Trade Union Membership Statistics 2015, Department for Business Innovation and Skills, May 2016, table A15 (from FOI request). 21 The City UK. April 2017. UK financial and related professional services


Source of figures: Office for National Statistics. May 2016. Trade union statistics 2015, table A15.

22 The City UK. August 2016. UK financial and related professional services: meeting the challenges and delivering opportunities23 McKinsey Quarterly 2016, issue 324 PWC. March 2017. UK economic outlook25 The City UK. August 2016. UK financial and related professional services: meeting the challenges and delivering opportunities26 PWC. April 2016. Leaving the EU: implications for the UK financial services sector27 Trade Union Membership Statistics 2016, ibid, table 1.8

The impact of automation and Brexit on finance sector jobsAutomation is expected to have the biggest impact on middle and back offices jobs and it is estimated that around 40% of financial services activities and 35% of professional services activities are at risk of automation by the adaption of existing technology.22 Some of the occupations most at risk of increased automation include insurance sales agents, bank tellers, mortgage advisers, underwriters and roles with a high proportion of collecting and processing data, gathering customer or product information, verifying accuracy of records and preparing contracts.23 A report on the impact of automation on UK jobs, published in March 2017 by PWC, forecasts that 32.2% of all current jobs in the financial and insurance industry are at high risk of potential automation by 2030, above the UK average of 30%, and equivalent to 350,000 jobs.24

Although London is a major employment hub for the sector, more than two thirds of financial services jobs are outside of London. There was a 7% drop in employment in the sector outside of London between 2009 and 2014.25 Leaving the EU is expected to decrease demand for services and lead to the relocation of some banking activity outside of the UK. Modelling by PWC concludes that, as a result of Brexit, there will be between a 5.8% and 8.2% reduction in employment in financial services by 2020, equivalent to 70,000 – 100,000 jobs. They do expect a gradual recovery with overall job losses standing at between 10,000 – 30,000 by 2030.26

Trade union membership in the finance sector

Current trade union membership levels in finance and insurance are declining more rapidly than the UK average. In 2016, 12.9% of workers in the sector were trade union members, a figure that has more than halved since 2000 when 30.9% were in a trade union.27 The pie chart below gives the latest available percentages of trade union membership by broad category within finance and insurance.

There are a large number of small trade unions that represent workers in the banking sector, mostly employees in one specific bank or banking group: Accord represents workers in the Lloyds Banking Group; Advance in Santander UK; Aegis in Aegon UK; Britannia Staff Union in the Co-Operative Banking Group; Nationwide Group Staff Union in the Nationwide Building Society; Staff Union West Bromwich Building Society (US) in the West Bromwich Building Society.

There are two unions that organise across the whole of the financial and insurance sector. Prospect has a small number of members, predominantly in accountancy, auditing and insurance and Unite has a finance and legal sector with 130,000 members throughout all major employers in banking and insurance, including Aviva, Barclays, Capita, Co-operative Banking Group, HSBC, iPSL, Legal and General, Lloyds Banking Group, Prudential, RBS and TSB. They have a current organising and recruitment campaign in RBS.

Prospects for Membership Growth in Santander

Following strategic discussions with Advance and Santander in 2018, the CWU has agreed a deal which gives us recognition for all employees in Santander Technology, the IT subsidiary of Santander UK. This bargaining unit is expected to grow in future, with the potential for up to 1,000 members and the prospect of a further 1,000 contractors many of whom are in the process of being offered direct labour jobs. Santander UK has a total of 22,000 UK employees, of which the CWU currently represents 3,500, whilst Advance represents 18,500. In addition to this, we represent approximately 1,100 of the 4,000 staff employed in Santander Operations, another subsidiary of Santander UK, with Advance representing the remainder. There may be opportunities for further strategic discussions to take place in future with a view to securing access to additional groups of employees in Santander.

37%

22%

10%

21%

10%Financial ex insurance and pension

Auxiliary to financial and insurance

Insurance, reinsurance and pension

Real estate activities

Legal and accounting activities

Union density in finance and insurance has more than halved since 2000.”


OTHER UNION RECRUITMENT AND ORGANISINGSTRATEGIES AND TARGETS

Unite

Unite the Union, commonly known as Unite, was formed in 2007 through the merger of Amicus and the Transport and General Workers' Union. It is the second largest trade union in the UK and Ireland with over 1.1 million members working across all sectors. Although the union has a particularly strong history in manufacturing and transport, in recent years it has focused energy and resources towards organising workers in the most precarious sectors.

Unite’s 2015 Financial and Legal Services conference resolved to: “target agency staff and other ‘peripheral workers’ (e.g. security, catering, postroom) who often fall outside of existing collective bargaining.” This strategy was affirmed by the union’s 2016 annual conference and has been codified in Unite’s ‘Agency Workers Template’, an advisory document to support shop stewards when recruiting and retaining agency staff.

Unite’s rationale for recruiting among agency workers is that all workers should be represented in a workplace “regardless of employment status” and that “failure to organise agency workers will inevitably lead to a casualised workforce and diminished bargaining power.” By committing to an organising campaign among such workers Unite believes that it will not only “provide permanent employment where possible” but also challenge the driving down of standards across the economy.

Unite has subsequently launched organising campaigns in various sectors, most notably in distribution centres. It is increasingly relying on an issue based campaigning approach to raise its profile, expose exploitative working practices and bring

about change for workers. In August 2016, after a high-profile campaign, Unite revealed that agency workers at Sports Direct had won over £1 million in back pay, the withdrawal of zero hours contracts, and a review of working conditions. However, there is, currently, limited evidence that the campaign has had a positive impact of membership with high-staff turnover a likely impediment to establishing a strong workplace presence.

Efforts to unionise agency workers have been supplemented by the launch of Unite Community, a new category of membership that “brings people outside of the workplace into the union community” on a reduced subscription rate. Members include students, carers, the retired and the unemployed.

As well as offering individual benefits, such as debt counselling and a free legal helpline, Unite’s Community members are utilising their “social and political reach” in wider campaigning activity. This has included support for action against government cuts, in solidarity with strikes and protests against evictions. It is understood that Community membership does not replace workplace action, but rather helps to supplement and strengthen links between trade unionists and their communities as a whole.

In 2016, Unite established a ‘self-employment unit’ both to explore the issues facing self-employed workers and to “pursue those employers who shamelessly dodge their responsibilities by classifying workers as self-employed”. This is a legal unit which will support Unite’s members in all sectors from construction to the gig economy.

The changing nature of the economy necessitates a re-evaluation as to how trade unions organise, their offer to prospective members and their means of collaboration. These are avenues the CWU can explore and seek to improve on in part by learning from what other unions are doing and working with them where possible.

Unite is organising among agency workers to protect employment standards across the economy.”

What are other unions doing on recruitment and organising?


GMB

The GMB is a general trade union with over 617,000 members across all sectors of the economy. In recent years it has focused on exposing the negative aspects of the ‘gig economy’ and the necessity of challenging false self-employment.

On 26 October 2016 the London Central Employment Tribunal delivered its verdict on the self-employed status of two Uber drivers, ruling in their favour that they were wrongly classified by their de facto employers as “independent contractors”. In turn, the Tribunal ruled Uber drivers are therefore entitled to essential workers’ rights including to be paid the National Minimum Wage and to receive paid holiday.

This was the first time that a major platform provider has faced legal action in the UK over whether its drivers are workers or self-employed. As part of its defence Uber denied that its drivers were entitled to workers’ rights, as it is just a technology company, not a taxi provider, and that Uber drivers do not work for Uber but instead work for themselves as self-employed business men and women. However, this was overruled on the grounds that far from being a “mosaic of 30,000 small businesses”, Uber drivers lacked the autonomy over their affairs at work required to be considered self-employed.

The GMB have subsequently launched a substantive organising campaign across the gig economy. In a public statement, the union stated that it would review the contracts at other firms that offer “bogus self-employment” and has subsequently launched legal action against firms including Hermes, DPD and UK Delivery Express. As with Unite’s experience in Sports Direct, however, there is as yet limited evidence that the union’s high-profile campaigns have substantially strengthened membership density.

Despite this, it is anticipated that alongside more traditional organising efforts targeted at the gig economy, the GMB will continue to pursue legal challenges to those firms it sees as exploiting falsely self-employed labour.

Usdaw

The Union of Shop, Distribution, and Allied Workers – Usdaw – is the UK’s fourth largest trade union, representing over 429,000 members nationwide. Usdaw members work in a range of occupations, but are generally drawn from the retail, warehousing and distribution sectors. For example, the union has a recognition agreement with Tesco and partnership agreements with Morrisons and Asda amongst other retailers.

Usdaw claims to be Britain’s second largest road transport union – after Unite. However, among owner drivers, Usdaw’s efforts to recruit have been thwarted by a general lack of enthusiasm. The union has, for example, previously attempted to recruit Hermes drivers but found little support for their offer. This may be because Usdaw has, as yet, not developed a clear/unique offer for the self-employed and is generally associated with commercial haulage rather than consumer deliveries.

However, with a range of benefits and offers available to members, including vehicle insurance and training opportunities, it is possible that this situation could change in the future. Usdaw’s benefits also include discounts on a range of goods and services including holidays, cinema tickets, theme parks, restaurants and gym membership, which Usdaw promotes as an opportunity to save the cost of membership.

It is notable that Usdaw has enjoyed substantial growth in the past 15 years reflecting a recruiting campaign that focused on major employers including Sainsbury’s and Tesco.

The GMB has launched an organising campaign in Uber and across the gig economy.”


Community

Community is the TUC’s smallest general union, forming in 2004 as a merger between the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation and the National Union of Knitwear, Footwear and Apparel Trades. It has subsequently grown through mergers with a number of other specialist/craft unions.

While several trade unions have identified self-employment as a challenge to be overcome, Community is clear that it also poses opportunities to be embraced. In 2015 the union set up a section for self-employed workers and freelancers in recognition of their growing importance to the British economy and challenges they may face in the workplace. Community has subsequently developed a package of member benefits that includes support with areas including health and safety responsibilities, insurance, tax returns, access to training, pensions and employment law.

They have also worked with the Freelancers Union, an American trade union that represents over 300,000 self-employed workers. Subsequently Community established a partnership agreement with Indycube, a co-operative working space, to help provide resources and support to self-employed workers including access to office space. Branding itself “the union for the self-employed” Community has developed a service model that includes access to legal support, factoring services to ease cash flow and discounts on insurance products.

Although Community has historically represented members in the steel and garments sectors it has sought to expand its influence into new areas. It has, for example, members in industries as diverse as bookmakers, prisons, charities and professional services. For each it has developed tailored membership packages to improve its service offer.

How are other unions organising self-employed workers?

The growing number of firms using self-employed workers has necessitated a reorientation in trade union organising and recruitment strategies. While most trade unions built their membership through collective bargaining agreements in large workplaces, such models are unviable in businesses that rely mainly on self-employment and other casualised forms of labour.

The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain, BECTU and Ver.di have all been active in organising and representing self-employed workers, as set out in the case studies below.

The strategies outlined here demonstrate the opportunities that exist for trade unions to engage self-employed workers and to organise for stronger rights and protections across our economy. The CWU may benefit from pursuing a similar route in order to maximise opportunities for membership growth and to help protect workers against a race to the bottom on pay and job security.

The IWGB in the courier sector

Legal action has been taken by the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), a small, independent trade union whose members are predominantly low-paid migrants in London, Bristol and Brighton. Although the IWGB is best known for organising cleaning staff, it launched an organising campaign among couriers in 2015. Subsequently, the union began legal proceedings against companies including CitySprint, Addison Lee, Excel and eCourier; demanding that its members be treated as workers rather than contractors. The union won all three of these cases, but the companies are either appealing the decision or amending the wording of contracts to avoid acting on the tribunal’s ruling.

In January 2017, the London Central Employment Tribunal ruled in favour of IWGB member Maggie Dewhurst, a courier for CitySprint who she claimed had misclassified her employment status. The judgment, written by employment Judge Jo Wade, described CitySprint’s business model as “contorted” and “indecipherable”. Importantly, the judge suggested that “it is CitySprint which has the power to regulate the amount of work available, and it keeps its couriers busy by limiting the size of the fleet”, again undermining any claims that couriers are genuinely self-employed.

The IWGB brought a case before the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) seeking union recognition for collective bargaining on behalf of Deliveroo couriers in 2017. The CAC ruled against this on the basis that the couriers were not workers, and it was reported in February 2018 that the IWGB is applying for a judicial review of this decision.

In March 2018, the CAC ruled that the IWGB must be recognised for collective bargaining at The Doctor’s Laboratory (TDL), which delivers pathology samples and blood to NHS hospitals. This makes IWGB the first union in the UK to be recognised for collective bargaining purposes with a company in the gig economy. The result was described by General Secretary Jason Moyer-Lee as a demonstration that “organising and winning in the so-called ‘gig economy’ is possible.” The union has now launched a £1 million holiday pay claim against TDL on behalf of around 50 couriers.


BECTU (a sector of Prospect)

BECTU is the UK’s media and entertainment union and became a sector of Prospect in January 2017. It represents contract and freelance workers in a range of sectors, including broadcasting, cinema, theatre and the arts. BECTU has developed a range of services to attract self-employed workers, including tax advice, guidance and influence on standard rates of pay, alerts on bad payers, and support with chasing bad debt.

BECTU has also, somewhat uniquely, established collective-bargaining arrangements with a number of major companies on behalf of self-employed workers. Chief among these is the BBC where BECTU has collaboratively established a Freelance National Council “to discuss issues affecting the BBC's freelance community”; established a specific agreement covering Drama productions in BBC Vision and entered into “a model agreement to cover other production genres e.g. Entertainment, Factual, to be implemented as BECTU demonstrates the agreed density of membership.”

It should be noted that the self-employed workers represented by BECTU are generally highly-skilled and few in number. In this sense, their experience is difficult to replicate in sectors such as transportation or logistics.

Ver.di

Ver.di is the second largest trade union in Germany (after IG Metall) with over 2 million members. It has been targeting self-employed workers since it was founded in 2001, and has around 30,000 self-employed members who mainly work in the media, IT and education sectors. In order to cater for the wide ranging needs of its self-employed membership, Ver.di has set up mediafon (www.mediafon.net). This is a complex network offering a range of services to self-employed members which can provide support both individually and collectively. Mediafon provides help in disputes with clients, and counselling on contractual, tax and social security issues. It operates by transmitting questions from the self-employed to a team of occupational experts in various fields.

The SEIU’s Fight for $15

The Fight for $15 is an example of an issue based campaign which has helped to exert political pressure on behalf of low paid workers in the United States. The campaign began in 2012 when two hundred fast-food workers organised by the Service Employee’s International Union (SEIU) took strike action to demand $15/hr and union rights in New York City. In the subsequent 6 years, it has become a global movement with campaigns taking place in over 300 cities across six continents.

Though the Fight began with fast-food workers, activists are drawn from sectors as diverse as retail, child care and health. Indeed, the Fight’s website suggests it is a campaign by and for “underpaid workers everywhere”. Working across unions, the campaign’s basic demand is for a $15 minimum wage, however, the campaign has also undertaken more general mobilising around a range of socio-economic issues.

In 2013, on the 45th anniversary of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, the Fight organised fast food workers in cities including Memphis, New York, Chicago and Detroit, undertaking rolling action in hundreds of workplaces. They were later joined in action by home care workers, illustrating the campaign’s broad nature. Within 3 years the campaign had undertaken action in over 350 cities, across a multitude of low-paid sectors.

Notably, the Fight has long had an avowedly political direction. For example, in the wake of the murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner at the hands of police officers, it helped to coordinate strikes and sit-ins alongside Black Lives Matters. SEIU organisers have also worked with unions internationally to develop transferrable community engagement and organising strategies aimed at the lowest paid workers. In the UK, for example, the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union have referenced the Fight as a model for their ’10 Pounds Now’ campaign and historic industrial action against McDonalds.

According to Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University, the Fight has developed a unique characteristic among labour movement campaigns to date: not only does it seek to enhance collective bargaining and rights within the workplace, but it has adopted a communitarian approach to extend rights across the whole community.28

To date the campaign has had a number of material successes. In 2014, for example, the Seattle City Government ruled that a $15 minimum wage would be introduced by 2021 with a 7-year staging process to meet the ambitious target. While Similar localised wins have been reported, and two challengers for the Democratic Presidential nomination – Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders – offered their support, the goal of ’15 dollars and a union’ in every workplace remains elusive. Adding to difficulties are concerns in some quarters that the Fight has detracted from traditional workplace bargaining. According to Andy Stern, a former SEIU President, “a social movement like Fight for $15 transfers money from your members to a broad-based fight”, but provides limited opportunities to increase membership levels or density.

28 Fight for $15 swells into largest protest by low-wage workers in US history, Guardian, 15 April 2015


29 Frey, C. B., Osborne, M. A., The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation, Oxford Martin, 17/9/201330 Technology at Work v2.0, Citi, January 201631 Arntz M., Gregory, T. & Zierahn, U., The Risk of Automation for Jobs in OECD Countries: A Comparative Analysis, OECD working Paper 28/6/201632 Delivery on demand: is Uber’s courier service a threat to European operators? Guardian, 16th February 201633 Amazon Prime Air, frequently asked questions, accessed on 7th March 2018 34 Exclusive, Amazon reveals details about its crazy drone delivery program, Yahoo Tech, 18th January 2016

A widely quoted Oxford Martin paper (Frey and Osborne) on computerisation predicts that 47% of jobs are at “high risk” of automation in the USA perhaps over the next decade or two,29 whilst another of their reports predicts that 35% of jobs are at high risk in the UK.30 The study on the USA estimates the probability of computerisation for 702 detailed occupations, ranking them from least to most computerisable.

It shows that engineering technicians, telecoms installers and repairers, and customer service reps have a relatively low probability of computerisation. Postal service clerks, loan interviewers, heavy truck drivers and postal service mail sorters have a relatively high probability of computerisation. Automotive technicians, postal service mail carriers and delivery service drivers sit somewhere in between.

These findings should be read on the understanding that they follow an occupation based approach i.e. they assume that whole occupations rather than single job tasks are automated by technology. It should be noted that the findings have been challenged by a 2016 working paper for the OECD which follows a task based approach. The OECD paper argues that most occupations contain tasks that are difficult to substitute at least for the foreseeable future and that therefore the impact of automation on jobs will be much less severe.31 The paper estimates that 10% of UK jobs are at high risk, considerably below Frey and Osborne’s 35% prediction.

The threat to jobs in the postal sector

Despite the OECD’s challenge to their findings, Frey and Osborne’s estimation of a relatively high probability of postal service mail sorting jobs, driving jobs and postal service clerks being computerised is clearly of some concern for the CWU.

We are already aware of the damage that automation in mail centres is having on postal jobs, combined with e-substitution and the ongoing decline in letter mail. Over the last 14 years there has been a reduction of around 70,000 staff in Royal Mail – from 212,000 in 2003 to 141,800 in 2017.

At the same time, the continued growth of e-commerce is driving higher parcel volumes, helping Royal Mail to remain profitable and offset the decline in letters. However, it has also given rise to fierce competition in parcel delivery from the likes of Amazon, Hermes and Yodel, all of which rely on self-employed owner drivers who are paid poverty wages and are denied access to basic employment rights such as paid holiday, sick leave and maternity rights.

Another potential threat to Royal Mail is the prospect of Uber launching its courier service UberRush in the UK. The service connects customers with a courier rather than a taxi and at present it only operates in the United States. Uber says it currently has no plans to launch UberRush in the UK, but analysts say it is just a matter of time before it launches elsewhere.32

Against this backdrop, the CWU faces a major challenge in recruiting and organising postal workers in new and growing operators and preventing a race to the bottom on pay and conditions across the postal sector. Longer term, not only does the possibility of driverless vehicles present a threat to postal jobs, but there is also a potential future threat from the development of automated drones for the delivery of packages. Amazon announced in 2016 that it is working on a project called Prime Air, a future delivery system designed to get packages weighing up to five pounds to customers in under 30 minutes using small drones.33 There is no timescale for its introduction, but Amazon says the automation technologies already exist and that it is now working on getting to a point where it can demonstrate that it operates safely.34

The threat to jobs in the telecoms sector

The predictions set out above indicate that many of the jobs carried out by our telecoms members, including line installation and repair and customer service roles, are at a relatively low risk of automation. It is important to note that there are other, less optimistic predictions regarding customer service roles however, with some commentators expecting customer service roles to be replaced by automated conversational interfaces or ‘chatbots’ in the next decade. Others disagree though, arguing that front-end chatbots have two major weaknesses compared to a human: they lack empathy and are not capable of problem solving. Overall, the evidence suggests that routine customer service work will increasingly be automated, whilst humans will continue to be needed for more complex tasks.

It is encouraging that BT has been recruiting more engineers and UK customer service representatives in response to customer demand for better, more reliable communications services.

THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION IN THE POST,TELECOMS AND FINANCE SECTORS


There is also a general drive, including at EU level, for investment in high speed broadband networks which could help to secure and create jobs, at least in the short to medium term. Longer term, there is a risk that the growth of fibre and the phasing out of copper networks will create a much more robust infrastructure that requires less repair and therefore fewer engineering jobs. However, copper is still a vital part of the network, and a strategy that includes fibre is vital for BT to continue to compete effectively and win new customers.

The threat to jobs in the financial services sector

As set out on p.34, there have been predictions that the finance sector will grow in the next ten years. However, more recent forecasts from PWC suggest an overall reduction in finance jobs as a result of Brexit. Studies also show that up to 40% of financial services activities are thought to be at risk of automation from existing technology. The impact on finance sector jobs is expected to be varied, with some roles at high risk of automation and some at low risk. The Frey and Osborne study predicts that most finance occupations, which involve a lot of tasks requiring social intelligence, are largely in the low risk category.35 However, many of the examples included in the study focus on high skill jobs such as financial managers, financial examiners and financial analysts. Some of the lower skilled finance sector jobs such as loan interviewers and insurance sales agents are in the high risk category.

Other research indicates that there is a significant threat to some of the more routine or less highly skilled jobs in the finance sector. For example, a report from the McKinsey Global Institute in 201336 found that up to $9 trillion in global wage costs could be saved as computers take over knowledge-in-tensive tasks such as analysing consumers’ credit ratings and providing financial advice.37

Postal mail sorting jobs are thought to be at high risk of automation.”

Investment in high speed broadband could help to create jobs.”

40%of financial services activities are thought to be at risk from automation.”

35 Frey, C. B., Osborne, M. A., The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation, Oxford Martin, 17/9/2013 36 Disruptive technologies, McKinsey Global Institute, May 201337 Robot revolution, rise of thinking machines could exacerbate inequality, Guardian, 5th November 201538 ETUI, Digitalisation of the economy and its impact on labour markets, Working Paper 2016


39 UK Commission for Employment and Skills. April 2016. Working futures 2014-2024

The European Trade Union Institute published a paper in 2016 identifying jobs at most and least risk and new jobs being created by digitalisation as shown in the table below.38 Jobs at most risk of automation tend to be those that follow well defined procedures, whilst those at least risk tend to be those that require creative or social intelligence, or a high degree of flexibility and physical adaptability.

Table 17: Jobs in the Digital Economy

EXPECTATIONS OF FUTURE GROWTH ANDDECLINE IN THE LABOUR MARKET

Jobs at greatest risk of automation / digitalisation

Jobs at least risk of automation / digitalisation New jobs

Sales and commerce

Transport, logistics

Manufacturing industry

Construction

Some aspects of financial services (e.g. credit analysts; insurance claims and processing

clerks)

Some types of services (e.g. translation, tax consultancy)

Legal services

Management, human resources manage-ment

Business

Some aspects of financial services (e.g. financial managers)

Health service providersComputer workers, engineers and scientists

Some types of services (e.g. social work; hairdressing; beauty care)

Top of the scaleData analysts, data miners, data architects

Software and application developers

Specialists in networking, artificial intelligence etc.

Designers and producers of new intelligent machines, robots and 3D printers

Digital marketing and e-commerce specialists

Bottom of the scaleDigital ‘galley slaves’ (data entry or filter

workers) and others working on the digital platforms.

Uber drivers, casual odd-jobbing (repairs, home improvement, pet care, etc.) in the

‘collaborative’ economy

Source: Christophe Degryse (ETUI 2016)

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills has assessed employment prospects in the UK labour market over a 10 year period (2014 – 2024)39 and concluded that there will be a small overall growth in employment, driven by: construction; trade, accommodation and transport; business and other services sectors. They estimate that employment growth will slow during the second half of the period. The table below summarises the numbers actually employed in 2014 alongside the predictions for 2024 by broad employment sectors as well as the percentage growth over 10 years.

However, this report was published before the EU referendum result and undoubtedly Brexit will have an effect on the job market. The impact will vary depending on the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU, access to the single market and levels of any tariffs introduced. A likely outcome will be to increase the rate of decline in employment opportunities in British manufacturing.


Source: UKCES, 2016

Sector Employment levels2014 Employment levels 2024 Employment growth

2014-2019Employment growth

2019- 2024

Primary sector and utilities 792,000 765,000 -1.1% -0.7%

Manufacturing 2,553,000 2,350,000 -0.3% -1.6%

Construction 2,276,000 2,393,000 1.7% 1.0%

Trade, accommodation & transport 9,032,000 9,248,000 1.0% 0.5%

Business & other services 11,153,000 11,552,000 1.2% 0.7%

Non-marketed services 8,607,000 8,833,000 -0.2% 0.5%

Total 34,413,000 35,141,000 0.6% 0.4%

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills has also produced data by broad occupational group for the same time period (2014 – 2024).

Table 19: UK employment forecasts by occupational group 2014-2024

Table 18: UK employment forecasts by sector 2014 - 2024

Occupational category 2014 levels 2019 levels Net change 2014 - 2019 2024 levels Net change

2019 - 2004Net change 2014 - 2024

Managers, directors and senior officials 3,304,000 3,612,000 308,000 3,802,000 190,000 498,000

Professional occupations 6,596,000 7,115,000 519,000 7,471,000 356,000 875,000

Associate professional and technical 4,638,000 4,964,000 326,000 5,176,000 212,000 538,000

Administrative and secretarial 3,565,000 3,315,000 -250,000 3,176,000 -139,000 -389,000

Skilled trades occupations 3,611,000 3,576,000 -35,000 3,514,000 -62,000 -97,000

Caring, leisure and other service 3,134,000 3,359,000 225,000 3,543,000 184,000 409,000

Sales and customer service 2,600,000 2,605,000 5,000 2,603,000 -2,000 3,000

Process, plant and machine operatives 2,067,000 1,991,000 -76,000 1,936,000 -55,000 -131,000

Elementary occupations 3,652,000 3,722,000 70,000 3,771,000 49,000 119,000

Total 33,167,000 34,259,000 1,092,000 34,992,000 733,000 1,825,000

The above table shows that the occupational categories most at risk of decline are: administrative and secretarial; skilled trades; process, plant and machine operatives. These are all areas where technological development will have most impact with automation of jobs. The predicted growth in construction is off-set by the ongoing decline in manufacturing and even construction is not immune from automation, with the potential roll-out of modular housing.

Sales and customer service jobs are expected to remain static as elements of routine work and enquiries can be automated, leaving workers to develop specialisms and deal with more complex queries.

The largest increase in employment opportunities will be in professional occupations as well as associate professional

and technical occupations. This growth can be explained by the expansion of the technological, engineering, science and research roles required by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The other key growth area is in caring, leisure and other service occupations, partly due to the difficulty in automating some of the manual functions of caring, coupled with an aging population.

The increase in roles at the top end of the job market for managers, directors and senior officials, as they help organisations navigate the necessary change management processes, as well as the bottom-end of the market, with elementary occupations that require no training or qualifications, is a worrying trend that shows the increase in inequality that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is expected to bring.

Source: UKCES, 2016


Experts predict that some work will be displaced by technology and that new work will be created to support the technological developments. The types of jobs will change, as will the way that work is organised. Low and high skilled work will continue to be available but it is predicted that there will be a hollowing out of the amount of work in the middle, especially for skilled workers in manufacturing. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills predicts changes: “in favour of the service sector … white collar, non-manual occupations … [with] further job losses for many manual blue collar jobs.”40

There are already structural changes in work. The gig economy has expanded, following the global financial crisis, economic uncertainty and a rise in unemployment. Many working in the gig economy are doing so out of necessity. However, the value of working flexibly and ‘being your own boss’ has been pitched persuasively to a younger generation of workers, fuelled by an increasing demand for online goods and services by consumers. Trade unions need to recognise this. Some gig workers are using this model of working as a source of additional income; some are students who will move on to alternative careers; some are retirees supplementing their pension income. The more varied the motivations for workers, the harder it is for trade unions to organise.

However, the perception and reality of gig work varies significantly. A CIPD survey last year found that fewer than four in ten gig workers say they feel like they are their own boss.41 Furthermore, of those for whom gig work was their main job, only 31% said they were “living comfortably” or “doing alright”.42

The trade union movement has an obligation to help those who are reliant on precarious work, trapped in under-employment and false self-employment, as well as a vested interest. Unchecked, these workers will continue to be used to undermine secure, better-paid, direct labour.

The construction industry has been plagued by false self-employment since the 1980s, stimulated by a unique tax system for construction workers. This has undermined the relevance of industry collective agreements and therefore the value of trade unions. A failure to adapt in a timely manner to the changing structure of work and recruit and organise amongst self-employed workers was a significant factor in the demise of UCATT.

The developments in technology and its impact on the world of work in the next decade will be transformative. But how that transformation manifests itself is still a matter of debate. Predictions of actual job losses differ wildly. The 2016 World Economic Forum predicted a short-term neutral impact on employment overall.43 Respected Political Scientist, Professor Philip Tetlock, conducted a 20 year study into forecasting and concluded that expert predictions were as accurate as a “dart-throwing chimpanzee”.44

Ultimately, the technological evolution has the potential to drive the economy and improve quality of life or create greater inequality and disrupt labour markets. The outcome is a political choice. Will the loss of quality work be acceptable to the public, especially those middle income workers who will be most adversely affected? Will the loss in tax revenue and increasing social security bill be acceptable to government? Is the public ready to accept greater automation in areas with an untested safety record, such as driverless vehicles? Will investors be deterred by potential litigation in the event of accidents?

The impact of technology on jobs and workers’ rights needs a wider policy debate. Pressure is already mounting on politicians to address the status of those working in the gig economy. Whilst companies such as Uber claim they are platforms to enable sharing of skills and assets, recent Employment Tribunals have found that they are acting as employers. Even the CIPD is calling for greater clarity about the demarcation between ‘employee’, ‘worker’ and the ‘self-employed’.45

CHALLENGES FOR TRADE UNION ORGANISING IN THE NEW WORLD OF WORK

The growth of self-employment and the Fourth Industrial Revolution with collaborative, online work platforms and advances in artificial intelligence, have huge implications for trade union organising strategies. Traditional workplaces with permanent workforces are increasingly giving way to more flexible forms of employment, and unions are having to think creatively about how to appeal to workers and attract new members in this changing environment.

40 UK Commission for Employment and Skills. April 2016. Working futures 2014-2024 41 CIPD. March 2017. To gig or not to gig? Stories from the modern economy42 CIPD, 2017, ibid43 World Economic Forum. 2016. The future of jobs: United Kingdom profile44 Tetlock, Philip & Dan Gardner. 2016. Super-forecasting: the art and science of prediction: 445 CIPD. March 2017. To gig or not to gig? Stories from the modern economy


Unfortunately, the UK Government has demonstrated that it has no real intention of genuinely tackling the scourge of insecure employment in the UK economy. The Government Commissioned Taylor Review of Employment Practices, published in 2017, was widely criticised by the union movement as totally inadequate to address the problems workers face. The Government is now consulting on some of Taylor’s recommendations rather than taking action.

For trade unions to most effectively shape this debate, we need to be organising and gathering evidence from gig workers. With delivery services forming a significant part of the gig economy, the CWU is ideally placed to use its expertise to recruit and organise. When gig workers were finding it difficult to make ends meet, their second more popular source of redress was trade unions (14%), after Citizens Advice (25%). However, 39% stated they did not know where they could get help.46 There is a huge opportunity to raise awareness of the role of trade unions amongst this group of workers.

There could also be an opportunity to organise amongst the skilled workers that will be required to deliver the access to mobile networks and data that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is reliant on for its success.

A view from Charles Heckscher, Professor of Labour Relations, Rutgers University

Corporate strategies are increasingly focused on flexibility and temporary task forces. The mass-production model of the twentieth century, using large groups of permanent workers, will be less dominant than in the past.

Work is increasingly becoming flexible, innovative, collaborative and non routine. Young workers see flexibility as promising choice and opportunity. They are unlikely to expect a lifetime of security at a single firm, and many wouldn’t want it if it was available.

Unions remain reasonably successful in the old landscape of work, which is still dominant in most countries. However, traditional methods of industrial unionism have not worked very well in the new landscape of decentralised, flexible work. There is reason to look beyond the labour traditions for new ideas that might succeed in the emerging new landscape.

The young and technically skilled often see unions as out of date, needlessly confrontational, and out of step with their desires for challenge and mobility. This presents a challenge for unions to appeal to workers who will develop through multiple employers rather than a single company.

A new offer from trade unions might include the provision of services to support career security rather than job security. Unions could look to set up worker based organisations using combinations of mutual insurance and government policy. These organisations could offer an array of services that would in the past have been offered by employers: job placement, training, career advice, pensions, financial planning, and health care.

Source: Solidarity and Collective Action in the New World of Work, UNI Global IT Organising Conference, Charles Heckscher, Rutgers University, January 2017

Trade unions need to be organising and gathering evidence from gig workers.”

There is reason to look beyond the labour traditions for new ideas that might succeed in the emerging new landscape.”

46 CIPD, 2017, ibid

NOTES

NOTES


CWU 150 The Broadway, Wimbledon, London, SW19 1RX email: [email protected] Tel: 020 8971 7200 Fax: 020 8971 7300 General Secretary: Dave Ward

05158/18 Published by The Communication Workers Union April 2018

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