Trade Unions in Local and Regional Development and Governance: The Northern Trades Union Congress in North East England

Abstract

From a position of relative isolation, trade unions have become increasingly important agents in local and regional development and governance in the UK since the election of the New Labour government in 1997. Analysis of the experience of the Northern Trades Union Congress (NTUC) suggests that devolution and regionalisation are exerting increasing pressures upon trade union federations to adopt a multi-level approach to organisation across a range of scales—local, sub-regional, regional, sub-national, national and international—to connect with the evolving multi-layered governance structures of the UK political economy. Strategic multi-level organisation suggests the decentralisation of power, authority and resources within the labour movement—challenging the national and centralised legacy of its collective bargaining history—and a division of labour and set of priorities at the different scales to build the links between local and regional engagement and trade union renewal.

Keywords:

• Trade Unions
• Trade Union Congress
• Local and Regional development and governance
• North East England

Acknowledgements

Peter O’Brien is the Regional Policy Officer at the Northern TUC and both Andy Pike and John Tomaney teach and research at CURDS. This paper builds upon Peter O’Brien's ESRC Studentship research (Award No: S00429937051). Thanks to the participants in the research project and the supervision committee Gill Hale (UNISON), Paul Nowak (NTUC) and Kevin Rowan (GMB) and the referees for their comments. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the OECD Local Employment and Economic Development (LEED) Programme, Société de Développement Angus (SDA) and the Community-University Research Alliance – Social Economy (CURA-SE) ‘Rendez-Vous Montréal 2002’ International Symposium on ‘Industrial Reconversion Initiatives Implemented by Actors in Civil Society’ (May). The usual disclaimers, as always, apply.