Painting unionism by numbers
by Peter Hall-Jones
  

Does it make sense anymore to think of the union movement as a collection of national struggles? We have seen that when production shifts from one country to another, unionism tends to fall in the first, and rise in the second. Generally, though, only the first story makes headlines. So how is union membership looking across the world? We have collected data from 106 countries (out of 194), covering by far the majority of the world's workers, and wherever possible we have looked for the trend since 2000. The graph below tells the story. Unionists - we salute you! If it were just a numbers game you'd have long ago won, hands down. A spreadsheet version of this data can be downloaded here.
  

Change in union membership
by country 2000-2007*

Below is the table from which this graph was derived**. The figure for the most recent data is clickable, and will take you to the source.**

You will find separate data relating to trends in national union federation membership here. This earlier story contains notes on our methodology in collecting these figures. In particular, you should note that where a figure has remained exactly the same over time we have not assumed that membership is stable - rather, that the figures have not been updated. Such cases join others marked as "Insufficient data".

This is an open-source project, and we would welcome your help in adding to or correcting this data. All we need is a reliable source. To assist us please use this form or email us here.

In the meantime we can only repeat our conclusion. Despite what the media would have you believe, unionism is growing again, and it has been for quite a few years. Decline in the developed world has been kept to a minimum by new and innovative strategies, while any losses have been compensated for by membership growth in developing countries.

The global union movement at the start of the 21st century should be seeing itself in a very strong position. We played the numbers game and won. In our opinion it is now time to take those winnings and reinvest them in building global influence.

It is also time we acknowledged the successful work of all those determined volunteers, organizers, supporters and officials. They have proved the cynics wrong. The sad thing is that the media isn't reporting this. In fact there seems to be nobody out there to tell them. Go on, you union members... find some collective way to celebrate your achievement!

Notes

* This graph is accurate for the data in the table below as at 22 October 2007. However as further informaton is provided and the data is sharpened, the graph will not automatically update itself. For this reason there may be temporary discrepancies between the graph and the data represented beneath. With each cycle of data updates (monthly) we will produce a new iteration of the graph, and will update this note accordingly.

** Where the link takes you to http://www.ilo.org/public/english/support/lib/resource/subject/labourstat.htm, this is so that you can request a copy of the ILO Bureau of Statistics Union Membership spreadsheet, as noted on that page. This document cites hard copy references, most of which are from statistical yearbooks.