Reversing the Decline of Union Power

Neoliberalism and postmodernism have torn apart the social fabric that once held us together. But in rebuilding the strength of labour and the organised society, we can be unified, empowered, and dignified once again.

(Photo by Harry Mitchell)

Over the past four decades, neoliberal economics and globalisation have systematically dismantled the security once afforded to the working class through its own efforts. Through the privatisation of public services, the offshoring of manufacturing, and the outsourcing of what remained, wealth has been funnelled upwards, leaving behind hollowed-out communities reliant on failing public infrastructure and insecure, low-paid work.

An unholy trinity has arisen from this economic experiment: skyrocketing corporate profits, the lowest investment levels among G7 nations, and a profound collapse in living standards. Since 1988, 44 percent of all wealth growth in the UK has been captured by the wealthiest 1 percent, while the country’s public infrastructure now faces a £200 billion investment shortfall. One-third of public spending is outsourced to private firms and half of the welfare budget goes to in-work benefits — a direct subsidy to employers who pay wages too low to live on.

Had the UK matched average G7 investment levels, nearly £2 trillion more would have been invested in our economy. Instead, the privatised public sphere prioritised financial speculation over productive investment, leaving critical infrastructure — such as the water system — crippled by unsustainable debt.

This economic transformation was not accidental; it was accompanied by the systematic dismantling of working-class power and institutions. As industries closed and jobs disappeared, so too did the trade unions that were based in those communities. Collective bargaining coverage has collapsed from 80 percent to just 25 percent, while union membership has fallen from 38 percent in 1979 to just over 10 percent today. Over 3.6 million UK workers are trapped in insecure employment (of these, a disproportionate number are women in care and service roles who earn below-average wages).

The decline in productive investment — which was driven by the social dumping of cheap overseas labour and subsidised low wages — has left the UK trailing its peers. But the damage extends far beyond economics. The trade union movement was never just about wages: it used to be the fabric of working-class life, encompassing sports clubs, cultural institutions, and mutual support networks. As factories and mines closed, social cohesion disintegrated. Communities lost not just jobs, but identity, solidarity, and hope.

Mainstream political parties — including both Labour and the Conservatives — have embraced free market orthodoxy, leaving working-class voters politically homeless. Disillusionment with the ‘extreme centre’ of politics has fuelled a turn towards anti-establishment alternatives. The political left, having lost touch with its class base, shifted focus from economic justice to a framework of postmodern identity politics and cultural liberalism. This shift began in the late twentieth century with the rejection of historic socialist tenets like reason, universal rights, and progress, and their replacement with increasingly irrational, sectarian, and nihilistic ideas.

Such developments fragmented class solidarity and replaced universalist demands for equality and dignity with an emphasis on individual identity categories. The Left increasingly appeared to many working-class voters to be dominated by moralising middle-class activists preoccupied with issues of race, gender, and climate. Meanwhile, material concerns like wages, housing, and social security were neglected. This new postmodern framework — one stripped of class politics — has been promoted by a political left that is often devoid of working-class activists and preoccupied with celebrating difference instead of solidarity and democracy.

Ultimately, democracy itself is based on community, and the nation state is the highest form of community. Any society or community needs a coherent set of first principles to coalesce around, or it risks being atomised into a kaleidoscope of sectarian interests, with increasingly dangerous consequences.

By adopting neoliberal economics and globalisation, apparently left-wing parties like Labour have become almost indistinguishable from their conservative counterparts. They have promised change, but they have never delivered. Meanwhile, the multipolar view of society as a collection of disparate identity groups — rather than a unified community — has undermined the shared values on which democracy rests. Without a coherent set of first principles, society has fractured.

Today, we face overlapping crises. We have a housing crisis: homes are treated as speculative assets rather than places to live. Over the last few decades, councils have sold off housing stock while financial institutions have inflated prices, pushing working people out of the market. We are also facing a crisis in public services: NHS waiting list numbers now exceed 7 million; there have been austerity cuts to the tune of £100 billion since 2010; and parasitic consultancy firms are siphoning off public funds, weakening the state’s capacity to function. Meanwhile, corporate vultures are ramping up the process, hoarding profits in energy and water during a collapse in living standards.

Running alongside these signs of economic deterioration is a crisis of social atomisation. Loneliness has burgeoned since Covid. Community spaces like pubs and clubs have vanished, and birth rates have collapsed under the economic burden of raising a family. Demographic changes, economic insecurity, rising crime, and drug abuse have further destabilised life in many towns and cities. At the heart of all of this is the unchecked power of the market.

A Blueprint for Reclaiming Dignity

The path forward begins in the workplace. The labour movement must reconnect with its class roots and reassert the politics of solidarity. We must advocate for an organised society — a society built around collective strength, industrial cooperation, and democratic control.

Rebuilding begins with reorganising our movement along industrial lines. The historic federations like the Triple Alliance and Transport Workers’ Federation must serve as models, not relics. The time for reform of our trade union movement has come. The groundwork laid out by TUC affiliates, including the RMT, for sectoral bargaining provides a clear blueprint for overcoming sectionalism and building industrial unity.

That industrial unity should be the bedrock of a clear political unity in demanding the rebirth of our movement. Just as political decisions dismantled the labour movement, political decisions must now rebuild it.

The labour movement must demand legislation to make sectoral bargaining a legal standard across all sectors. It is in our hands to replace an outdated postmodernist world view with a new strength of purpose in order to reconnect with workers in working-class communities in meaningful ways, based on foundational values of solidarity and trade unionism.

We must win the right to solidarity strike action, reinstating the principle of mutual aid that once defined our class. Anti-union legislation designed to reduce us to beggars must be overturned. Our movement must be re-rooted in the communities we aim to serve, guided by universalist class politics and cooperative institutions that tangibly improve people’s lives. We cannot be reduced to committees squabbling over shrinking slices of public funding. We need to build institutions of provision, not just protest their absence.

We must also demand a new financial architecture — with the state taking an active role in shaping industrial strategy, investing in infrastructure, building homes, and securing jobs. We cannot survive as a collection of banks with a country attached. The age of global free markets is ending; we must prepare for what comes next.

This means taxing unproductive wealth and redirecting it into the public realm. It means nationalising key industries and services, reversing decades of privatisation and outsourcing. With public ownership and expanded council housing, we can stabilise society and offer people the security they have been denied.

All of this depends on rebuilding an organised class — united, confident, and prepared to demand a new settlement. Through an organised society, we can restore dignity and end the chaos. If we fail to revive the labour movement, we risk watching it drift into total irrelevance, making it no longer a force in working-class life but a memory of what once was. The time for renewal is now.