Just one in 10 private sector workers may be members of a trade union by 2030 if current trends continue, according to a new analysis outlined at the launch of WorkerTech, a charity-backed project intended to harness digital technology to help low-paid workers.
The Resolution Trust, which is a charity, and an east-London-based “social startup” incubator, Bethnal Green Ventures, will find and support five businesses with new ideas about improving the world of work.
As politicians agonise about how best to tackle the economic insecurities many believe helped to drive the Brexit vote, Gavin Kelly, the director of the Resolution Trust, which is funding the project, said government action could only go so far in tackling exploitation. “We’re seeing ever more high-profile cases of tech being used one way or another to push risk on to the workforce – whether via new online platforms or in traditional sectors. But we’ve seen very little innovation in terms of workers coming together to use some of the same technology to improve their plight.
“Experience in other countries shows us ways in which tech can be used to pool and deploy information on bad employers, cut better deals [with] employment agencies or improve security over working hours,” he said.
Research published at the launch of the programme on Tuesday night highlighted the rapid decline in trade union membership, which on current trends could decline from 22% of workers today, to 17% by 2029 and perhaps as low as 10% among private sector workers.
The TUC is backing the project, which aims to put power back in workers’ hands – including among atomised workforces in insecure employment, who can be hard for trade unions to reach.
Kelly pointed out that corporations __have made full use of technological innovation to recruit, monitor and manage their workforces – but the benefits __have rarely extended to their low-paid staff, whom unions can sometimes find hard to reach.
He highlighted a series of innovations in the US, including Coworker.org, which helps to unite employees in disparate workplaces to demand change from their employers. It recently engaged staff and customers of video-streaming service Netflix in a campaign to win paid parental leave for its employees.
Another example, Hourvoice, is an app – still in the development phase – which allows hourly workers to enter details about their pay and conditions, and compare pay and conditions across employers. There are few examples of such projects in the UK.
Resolution Trust, set up by an insurance investor, Clive Cowdery, to boost the living standards of the low-paid, has initially committed to spend £200,000 on the project, but hopes to become a home for “WorkerTech”. Bethnal Green Ventures provides intensive three-month support to startup businesses with a social purpose.
How to underpin living standards for the households hardest hit by the wage squeeze in the years that followed the financial crisis has become a pressing political issue, with Theresa May conceding that globalisation has “downsides” and some workers have seen “their jobs being outsourced and wages undercut”.
