The Trade Union Movement in the World Today
Introduction: The Question That Will Not Disappear
Rebuilding Working-Class Power in an Age of Global Capitalism
The question of the trade union movement is once again becoming unavoidable.
For several decades, political commentators, economists and even sections of the left treated organised labour as a declining institution of an earlier industrial age. The great factories of the twentieth century were disappearing. Employment was moving into services. Production was being globalised. Permanent employment was being replaced by temporary contracts, subcontracting and casualisation. Digital platforms were reorganising work. And increasingly sophisticated technologies appeared to make the traditional workplace-based trade union increasingly irrelevant.
Yet the fundamental problem that produced trade unions has not disappeared.
Workers still have to sell their labour in order to live. Employers still control productive resources, investment decisions and the organisation of production. The individual worker remains structurally weaker than the employer. And the question of how millions of people who possess little economic power individually can exercise power collectively remains as urgent as ever.
Indeed, the contemporary world may require trade unions more than ever.
The decline of organised labour has coincided with enormous transformations in the distribution of wealth and power. Across many advanced economies, union membership and collective bargaining coverage have fallen dramatically since the 1980s. The OECD reports that average trade union density across OECD countries fell from around 30 percent in 1985 to about 15 percent in 2024, while collective bargaining coverage fell from 47 percent to 33.6 percent.
The decline is not simply a story about membership cards. It represents a decline in the institutional capacity of workers to negotiate collectively over wages, working conditions, working time, health and safety, job security and the direction of economic policy.
At the same time, employers have not disappeared as organised actors.
Capital has become more international, more mobile and, in many respects, more institutionally coordinated. Multinational corporations can move investment between countries. Supply chains stretch across continents. Financial markets discipline governments. Digital platforms can coordinate millions of transactions while employing comparatively few workers directly. Algorithms increasingly organise work, measure performance and determine access to employment.
The imbalance is therefore striking.
Workers are frequently told that the world of work has become too complex for traditional collective organisation. Capital, meanwhile, has become extraordinarily organised.
The central question for the twenty-first-century labour movement is therefore not whether trade unions belong to the past. It is whether workers can develop forms of organisation capable of confronting the new structures of capitalism.
That requires looking backwards as well as forwards.
The history of trade unionism reveals why workers organise, why they sometimes fail to organise, why unions become bureaucratic, why employers resist them, why democratic participation matters, and why political organisation has historically been so closely connected with the labour movement.
The crisis of trade unionism is real. But it is not necessarily the end of organised labour.
It may instead be the beginning of a struggle to rebuild it on a new basis.
1. Why Trade Unions Still Matter
At its simplest, a trade union is an organisation through which workers act collectively. This apparently simple definition contains an enormous political significance.
An individual worker normally bargains with an employer from a position of weakness. The employer controls the workplace and usually possesses greater financial resources. The worker depends upon receiving wages in order to pay for food, housing, transport, education and other necessities.
The employer can often survive for a period without one particular worker.
The worker generally cannot survive indefinitely without income.
This asymmetry gives the employment relationship a structural inequality.
A worker may technically be free to refuse a particular job. But economic necessity limits the practical meaning of that freedom. Most workers do not possess factories, offices, machines, land, financial capital or large reserves of wealth that allow them to live independently of employment.
They possess their capacity to work.
The trade union changes the situation by transforming individual bargaining into collective bargaining.
One worker saying, “I will not accept these conditions,” can usually be replaced.
A thousand workers saying, “We will not accept these conditions,” create a fundamentally different problem.
This is the essential power of collective organisation.
The trade union is therefore not simply a service organisation that negotiates higher wages. It is an institution that changes the balance of power inside the employment relationship.
The original source material makes this point particularly clearly: workers are individually vulnerable because they depend upon employment, while employers generally have greater resources with which to withstand conflict. Collective organisation partially corrects that imbalance.
Trade unions can negotiate:
- wages;
- working hours;
- overtime;
- holidays;
- pensions;
- health and safety;
- disciplinary procedures;
- redundancy arrangements;
- job security;
- equality provisions;
- training;
- workplace representation;
- protection against arbitrary dismissal;
- and broader conditions of employment.
But their importance extends beyond the workplace.
A strong labour movement can influence social policy, taxation, public services, pensions, housing, healthcare, education and economic policy.
Historically, many social rights that are now considered normal did not simply appear through enlightened government policy. They emerged from long struggles involving workers’ organisations, political movements and social campaigns.
The eight-hour working day, collective bargaining rights, minimum wages, workplace safety regulations, social insurance, pensions, paid holidays and other protections have all been shaped by organised struggles.
The history of trade unionism is therefore also a history of the expansion of democracy into economic life.
2. The Fundamental Imbalance Between Labour and Capital
The relationship between labour and capital is often described as a contractual relationship between equals.
In legal terms, an employment contract is an agreement between two parties.
In economic reality, the relationship is more complicated.
One party generally owns or controls productive resources. The other needs access to those resources in order to obtain an income.
This distinction matters.
If a worker refuses a job because the wage is too low, another worker may accept it.
If a company loses one worker, it may be able to replace them.
But if workers collectively refuse to work, replacement becomes considerably more difficult.
This is why collective action changes the bargaining relationship.
The employer’s power does not disappear. But it encounters an organised counter-power.
This is one reason employers have historically resisted trade unions.
A union can increase wages and therefore labour costs. It can limit managerial discretion. It can require employers to negotiate rather than simply issue instructions. It can challenge unsafe working conditions. It can prevent arbitrary dismissals. It can demand information about company decisions. It can organise strikes.
From the perspective of capital, this can appear as an unwanted restriction on managerial freedom.
From the perspective of workers, it is precisely the purpose of organisation.
The question is therefore not whether unions interfere with management.
They are supposed to.
Without some limitation on unilateral managerial power, the formal freedom of the employment contract can conceal a profound economic inequality.
Trade unions provide workers with an institution through which they can exercise power collectively.
3. Trade Unionism and the Limits of Economism
Trade unions, however, have an inherent contradiction.
They can improve the position of workers without necessarily changing the economic system that produces the relationship between employers and employees.
A union may win higher wages.
But the worker remains a wage labourer.
A union may win better working hours.
But the ownership of the enterprise may remain unchanged.
A union may negotiate better pensions.
But investment decisions may continue to be determined by private capital.
This distinction has long been important within socialist thought.
The struggle over wages, working hours and working conditions is indispensable. But it can become “economism” if the labour movement is reduced entirely to bargaining within the existing system.
Workers can win important reforms without transforming the structure of economic power.
This does not make trade union struggles unimportant.
On the contrary, workers learn through struggle.
A workplace campaign can teach workers how collective power operates. A strike can demonstrate the dependence of production upon labour. Collective bargaining can reveal the relationship between wages, productivity and profits. Workplace organisation can create networks of trust that later become political organisations.
The economic struggle can therefore become a school of political organisation.
The challenge is to connect the immediate struggle with broader questions:
Who owns productive resources?
Who controls investment?
Who decides what is produced?
Who determines working conditions?
Who benefits from technological change?
Who bears the costs of economic crises?
Who controls the state?
And ultimately:
Can an economy organised around private accumulation be reorganised around human need and democratic control?
These questions cannot be answered by a wage agreement alone.
But neither can they be answered without organised workers.
4. The Historical Relationship Between Socialism and Trade Unionism
The relationship between socialism and trade unionism has never been simple.
Trade unions are not automatically socialist organisations.
Workers can organise around wages and conditions without adopting a socialist political programme.
Unions can become conservative institutions.
They can defend existing members while neglecting unemployed workers, migrants, temporary workers or workers in unorganised sectors.
They can develop bureaucracies that become disconnected from their membership.
Yet historically, socialist activists played a major role in expanding the scope of trade unionism.
One reason was ideological.
Socialists were often prepared to ask questions that went beyond the immediate workplace.
They asked why workers remained poor despite producing enormous wealth.
They asked why workers were divided according to nationality, ethnicity, race, gender and occupation.
They asked why some workers were organised while others were excluded.
And they asked how workplace struggles could become part of a broader movement for social transformation.
The source material emphasises the historical importance of socialist organising in moving labour organisations away from narrow craft unionism toward broader industrial, interracial and multicultural forms.
That historical contribution deserves serious consideration.
Craft unionism often organised skilled workers according to occupation.
Industrial unionism sought to organise workers across occupational divisions within an industry.
The distinction was politically important.
A factory cannot operate simply because skilled workers are present.
Production depends upon machinists, cleaners, transport workers, warehouse workers, maintenance workers, administrative workers, temporary workers and many others.
Organising the whole workforce creates a different kind of power.
It turns the workplace from a collection of occupations into a collective social institution.
5. From the Factory Floor to the Fragmented Workplace
The classic industrial workplace was unusually favourable to union organisation.
Thousands of workers could be concentrated in a single factory.
They worked together.
They often lived in the same neighbourhoods.
Their families knew one another.
They shared public institutions, schools, transport networks, clubs and community organisations.
The workplace therefore became a social world.
An injury to one worker could be experienced by hundreds of others.
A wage cut affected an entire community.
A strike was not simply an event at work. It could become a political event across a city.
The modern economy is frequently different.
Production is fragmented.
Large factories have been replaced in many sectors by networks of smaller workplaces.
Companies outsource functions.
Subcontractors employ workers who technically work for another company.
Temporary employment agencies separate workers from the ultimate beneficiaries of their labour.
Logistics systems distribute workers geographically.
Many employees commute long distances.
Remote work separates workers physically.
Platform workers may never meet their colleagues.
The workplace has become more difficult to define.
This creates a fundamental challenge for trade unionism.
If the workplace is fragmented, where does organisation begin?
If workers do not share a physical location, how do they develop trust?
If the employer is a multinational corporation while the worker is technically employed by a subcontractor, who is responsible?
If an algorithm determines access to work, who does the worker bargain with?
If a worker is legally classified as self-employed but economically dependent upon one platform, what does “employment” mean?
These are not merely technical questions.
They are questions about the institutional future of labour.
6. Globalisation and the Internationalisation of Capital
The internationalisation of capital has created another problem for trade unions.
A worker may negotiate with a company in one country while investment decisions are made somewhere else.
A factory can be closed because production is being relocated.
A company can threaten to move production if workers demand higher wages.
A multinational corporation may compare labour costs across countries.
This creates a structural problem for national trade unions.
Capital can cross borders more easily than most workers can.
Workers therefore face a fundamental strategic challenge:
How can labour organise internationally when capital already operates internationally?
The answer cannot simply be to oppose international trade or global economic integration.
Workers in different countries have common interests.
A worker in Bangladesh producing garments for European consumers and a worker in Europe handling the logistics of those garments may work under very different conditions. But both are part of the same production system.
Similarly, workers in automobile plants across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas may be employed by the same multinational corporation.
The challenge is to turn these relationships into organisational power.
That means developing international trade union networks, cross-border bargaining, supply-chain campaigns, worker-to-worker communication and international standards.
It also means resisting attempts to make workers compete against one another.
When capital tells workers in one country that their wages must remain low because workers elsewhere are cheaper, the response cannot simply be nationalist protectionism.
The deeper response is international labour solidarity.
The objective should be to raise standards rather than to lower them.
7. The Global Decline of Union Density
The decline of organised labour is measurable.
The OECD’s most recent comparative data show a long-term reduction in both union membership and collective bargaining coverage across most OECD economies. Average union density has approximately halved since the mid-1980s, while collective bargaining coverage has also fallen substantially.
This decline has important consequences.
Where union density falls, individual workers have less collective bargaining power.
Where bargaining coverage falls, wage-setting becomes increasingly decentralised.
Where collective institutions weaken, workers are more exposed to employer decisions.
But statistics can conceal important differences.
Some countries have relatively low union membership but extensive collective bargaining because sectoral agreements cover workers who are not union members.
Other countries have higher membership but bargaining is concentrated at the enterprise level.
Public-sector unionism is often considerably stronger than private-sector unionism.
The OECD reports that unionisation in the public sector is around four times as high as in the private sector across the OECD, illustrating the importance of institutional structures in determining union strength.
This matters because the crisis of trade unionism is not simply a crisis of workers’ willingness to organise.
It is also a crisis of labour institutions.
Legal systems, industrial structures, employer organisation, labour-market policy and the level at which collective bargaining takes place all shape the possibilities for union organisation.
8. The United States as a Warning
The United States provides a particularly striking illustration of the long-term decline of trade union density.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 14.7 million wage and salary workers were union members in 2025, representing 10.0 percent of wage and salary workers. In 1983, the comparable membership rate was 20.1 percent.
The aggregate number therefore hides an enormous historical decline in union density.
The source interview describes the U.S. labour movement as being in a particularly weak position and emphasises the importance of the difference between public-sector and private-sector unionisation.
The lesson is broader than the United States.
A society can maintain substantial numbers of union members while still experiencing a profound decline in labour power if unions become concentrated in particular sectors and large parts of the private economy remain unorganised.
A strong labour movement therefore cannot simply defend existing membership.
It must organise new workers.
That means retail.
Logistics.
Warehousing.
Hospitality.
Healthcare.
Education.
Technology.
Care work.
Agriculture.
Construction.
Transport.
Digital platforms.
And the enormous informal economy.
9. The New Working Class
The idea of “the working class” must itself be reconsidered.
The industrial worker remains important.
But the contemporary working class is much more diverse than the stereotypical image of the male factory worker.
It includes:
- nurses;
- teachers;
- cleaners;
- warehouse workers;
- delivery workers;
- agricultural workers;
- construction workers;
- hotel workers;
- call-centre employees;
- software workers;
- platform workers;
- care workers;
- domestic workers;
- migrant workers;
- temporary workers;
- logistics workers;
- public-sector employees;
- freelancers who are economically dependent on corporations;
- and millions of workers in informal employment.
Women constitute a central part of the modern working class.
Migrants constitute another central component in many labour markets.
Young workers often enter precarious employment and move frequently between employers.
The traditional union model built around long-term employment in one workplace is therefore insufficient.
The labour movement must organise people whose employment is unstable.
This requires new forms of membership.
A worker should not lose their relationship with the union simply because they change employer.
Unions could develop forms of portable membership, sectoral membership and community-based organisation.
A worker who moves from one restaurant to another should remain connected to the same hospitality workers’ organisation.
A delivery worker should not cease to have a collective identity every time they switch platforms.
A migrant agricultural worker should be able to remain connected to a labour organisation across seasonal employment.
The future union may therefore have to become less like a workplace club and more like a permanent organisation of working people.
10. Platform Labour and the Algorithmic Workplace
Digital platforms have introduced a new layer of complexity.
Uber drivers, food-delivery couriers, online freelancers, domestic workers and other platform workers may appear to be independent contractors.
Yet platforms can determine prices, allocate jobs, monitor performance and discipline workers through digital systems.
The employer has not necessarily disappeared.
It may have become an algorithm.
The International Labour Organization has increasingly addressed this transformation. In June 2026, the International Labour Conference adopted the Decent Work in the Platform Economy Convention, 2026 (No. 193), establishing an international labour standard specifically addressing platform work.
This development is significant because it recognises that digitalisation does not eliminate labour relations.
It transforms them.
The ILO also notes major measurement problems surrounding platform employment because existing statistical systems do not yet fully capture the scale and variety of digital platform work.
The challenge for unions is therefore twofold.
First, they must organise platform workers.
Second, they must develop democratic control over the technologies used to manage workers.
Algorithmic management should not become a mechanism through which employers exercise invisible authority.
Workers need rights to know:
- how performance is measured;
- how algorithms allocate work;
- why accounts are suspended;
- how ratings affect income;
- how data are collected;
- how artificial intelligence affects employment decisions;
- and how automated systems can be challenged.
The digital workplace must become a democratic workplace.
11. Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work
Artificial intelligence intensifies the question.
AI is frequently presented as a technological revolution that will either eliminate work or create enormous new wealth.
Both possibilities contain elements of truth.
But the crucial political question is not simply what technology can do.
It is who controls it.
If AI increases productivity, workers should have a claim upon the resulting social surplus.
Otherwise productivity gains can become another mechanism for transferring income from labour to capital.
A company may introduce AI to reduce staffing.
Workers may be told that technological change is inevitable.
But “inevitable technology” does not mean inevitable social consequences.
Society decides how technological gains are distributed.
A productivity increase could mean:
- shorter working hours;
- higher wages;
- improved public services;
- better working conditions;
- expanded social protection;
- more leisure;
- or greater profits for shareholders.
The technology itself does not determine the outcome.
Power does.
This is why AI makes organised labour more important, not less important.
Workers need institutions capable of negotiating technological transitions.
Trade unions should demand consultation over automation, access to information about AI deployment, retraining, employment guarantees where feasible, reduced working hours when productivity rises, and democratic oversight of workplace technologies.
The principle should be straightforward:
Technology should reduce the burden of work, not simply reduce the number of workers who share in social wealth.
12. The Informal Economy and the Global South
Any discussion of the global labour movement that focuses exclusively on Europe and North America is incomplete.
Much of the world’s workforce exists outside the formal employment structures upon which traditional trade unions were built.
Workers in informal employment may include street vendors, domestic workers, agricultural labourers, waste pickers, construction workers, home-based workers, transport workers and many others.
These workers may lack formal contracts.
They may lack social protection.
They may move between occupations.
They may work through family networks.
They may be migrants.
They may be simultaneously self-employed and economically dependent upon larger businesses.
Traditional trade union structures often struggle to reach them.
Yet informal workers have demonstrated extraordinary organisational capacity.
Street vendors’ associations, domestic workers’ organisations, agricultural unions, transport associations and cooperative organisations show that labour organisation does not require a standard factory workplace.
The labour movement of the future must therefore learn from these forms of organisation rather than treating informal workers as outside the working class.
In much of Asia, Africa and Latin America, this is essential.
The question is not simply how to unionise informal workers.
It is how to build organisations that reflect their actual conditions of life.
That may involve unions, cooperatives, mutual-aid organisations, community associations and political movements working together.
13. Why Employers Resist Unions
The opposition of employers to trade unions is often described as ideological.
It is also economic.
Collective bargaining can raise wages.
It can reduce managerial flexibility.
It can restrict unilateral decisions.
It can require employers to disclose information.
It can make dismissals more difficult.
It can increase the costs of restructuring.
These are precisely the reasons workers value collective organisation.
The contradiction is structural.
Employers generally seek to organise production as efficiently and profitably as possible.
Workers seek security, decent wages, reasonable working hours and control over the conditions under which they work.
There can be compromise.
But there can also be conflict.
A functioning industrial-relations system does not eliminate this conflict.
It provides institutions through which conflict can be managed.
Collective bargaining is therefore not an obstacle to democracy.
It is a mechanism of economic democracy.
14. Trade Unions and Productivity
There is an important complication.
Trade unions can sometimes oppose technological change because workers fear job losses.
That fear is understandable.
A new machine may increase productivity while making some workers redundant.
But technological change does not necessarily have to become a conflict between workers and technology.
The real question is who receives the benefits.
Suppose productivity increases by 20 percent.
One possible outcome is:
- 20 percent more output;
- fewer workers;
- longer working intensity;
- higher profits.
Another possibility is:
- 20 percent more output;
- shorter working hours;
- stable employment;
- higher wages;
- more leisure.
The difference is political.
Collective bargaining can provide mechanisms for negotiating technological transitions.
This is one reason the existence of broader welfare institutions matters.
Workers are more capable of accepting economic restructuring when they know that losing one job does not mean losing healthcare, housing, income security or dignity.
The Scandinavian experience, despite its own limitations and differences between countries, demonstrates the importance of combining strong labour institutions with social protection and labour-market adjustment.
A democratic labour movement should not defend every existing job regardless of technological or ecological change.
It should defend the worker.
That distinction is crucial.
The objective is not to preserve every particular production process forever.
It is to ensure that workers do not bear the costs of social transformation alone.
15. The Problem of Union Bureaucracy
One of the most serious challenges facing trade unions is internal bureaucracy.
A large organisation inevitably requires administration.
Unions need offices.
They need lawyers.
They need researchers.
They need organisers.
They need negotiators.
They need accountants.
They need political education.
They need strike funds.
They need communications systems.
In other words, bureaucracy is not automatically a betrayal of workers.
Some bureaucracy is simply the administrative infrastructure required by a large organisation.
But bureaucracy can become a political problem when officials develop interests that diverge from the membership.
Officials may become more concerned with institutional stability than with organising workers.
They may prefer negotiation to confrontation.
They may fear losing their positions.
They may become accustomed to relationships with employers and governments.
They may discourage internal opposition.
The source material makes an important additional point: the problem cannot simply be explained by dishonest leaders. Rank-and-file members themselves may delegate responsibility because they are busy, exhausted and unwilling or unable to participate constantly in union administration.
This creates a structural dilemma.
If members do not participate, leaders acquire greater authority.
If leaders acquire too much authority, members become less involved.
If members become less involved, bureaucracy becomes stronger.
The cycle can reproduce itself.
The solution is not to abolish administration.
It is to democratise it.
16. What Would Democratic Unionism Mean?
A democratic union should not mean that every decision is made by referendum.
That would be impossible.
Workers have jobs, families and responsibilities.
They cannot spend every day attending union meetings.
Democratic unionism therefore requires a combination of representative leadership and meaningful member control.
This could include:
- transparent finances;
- regular elections;
- term limits where appropriate;
- recall mechanisms;
- strong workplace representatives;
- accessible meetings;
- digital participation;
- independent internal publications;
- member education;
- open bargaining mandates;
- democratic strike authorisation;
- protection for internal political groups;
- and clear accountability for elected officials.
Most importantly, workers need opportunities to become organisers themselves.
A union that depends entirely upon professional officials can become passive.
A union that continually develops workplace leaders creates organisational capacity.
The goal should therefore be to build a culture in which workers do not simply ask:
“What is the union going to do for us?”
They ask:
“What are we going to do together?”
That is the difference between membership and organisation.
17. The Myth That Rank-and-File Workers Are Always Ready to Mobilise
There is another romantic misconception on the left.
It is tempting to imagine that ordinary workers are naturally militant while union bureaucrats suppress their revolutionary energy.
Reality is more complicated.
Workers have jobs.
They have children.
They have debts.
They have mortgages or rent.
They may fear dismissal.
They may have experienced failed strikes.
They may distrust political organisations.
They may simply be exhausted.
The source interview rightly emphasises the practical difficulty of getting workers to attend meetings and participate in internal debates.
This should not be interpreted as political apathy.
It is often a consequence of the conditions under which workers live.
A worker who spends ten hours at work, commutes two hours and then cares for children has little time for lengthy political meetings.
Therefore democratic unionism must be designed around workers’ actual lives.
Meetings should be accessible.
Communication should be continuous.
Education should be practical.
Participation should not require people to become full-time activists.
A successful labour movement must create many different levels of participation.
Some workers may become organisers.
Others may attend occasional meetings.
Others may distribute information.
Others may participate in workplace actions.
Others may contribute financially.
Others may provide community support.
All forms of participation matter.
18. Existing Unions Should Not Simply Be Abandoned
A recurring temptation among radical movements is to declare existing institutions obsolete.
If established unions are bureaucratic, conservative or ineffective, why not simply build new ones?
Sometimes new organisations are necessary.
But abandoning existing unions altogether can be strategically disastrous.
Established unions possess:
- members;
- offices;
- legal recognition;
- strike funds;
- experienced organisers;
- institutional knowledge;
- negotiating structures;
- political influence;
- pension systems;
- communication networks;
- and financial resources.
The source material strongly argues that existing unions should therefore be reformed and democratised rather than simply discarded.
This does not mean accepting conservatism.
It means recognising organisational reality.
If existing unions have resources, those resources should be used to organise workers who currently have no union.
The objective should be transformation from within wherever possible, new organisation where necessary, and cooperation wherever useful.
The labour movement cannot afford sectarian competition between organisations when the majority of workers remain unorganised.
19. Public Support Matters
Trade unions do not organise workers in isolation from society.
A strike can succeed or fail partly because of public opinion.
A hospital strike raises questions about patients.
A transport strike affects commuters.
A teachers’ strike affects parents.
A dockworkers’ strike can affect supply chains.
Employers understand this.
They often attempt to portray strikes as selfish.
The labour movement therefore needs a broader political argument.
Workers are not demanding special privileges when they demand decent wages.
They are demanding a fair distribution of the wealth they produce.
The broader public is not merely an audience.
It is part of the social environment in which labour struggles take place.
Community organisations, students, pensioners, consumers and social movements can become allies.
This is especially important when employers attempt to isolate workers.
The more a strike is understood as a struggle over social justice rather than a narrow workplace dispute, the more potential it has to attract solidarity.
20. Trade Unions and the Welfare State
Strong labour movements historically contributed to the development of welfare institutions.
This relationship can work in both directions.
Unions can fight for welfare policies.
Welfare institutions can also strengthen workers’ bargaining power.
A worker with healthcare independent of employment is less vulnerable to employer threats.
A worker with unemployment protection can resist a bad job.
A worker with a pension does not have to accept every demand simply to survive in old age.
A worker with affordable housing has greater freedom.
Social protection therefore affects the balance of power inside the workplace.
This is why attacks on public welfare systems can weaken labour indirectly.
Privatisation does not simply change who delivers a service.
It can change the bargaining position of workers.
The labour movement must therefore defend social rights as part of workplace power.
Trade unionism cannot be reduced to collective bargaining inside individual firms.
The broader social wage matters.
21. Trade Unions and Democracy
There is an even deeper reason why trade unions matter.
Economic democracy is impossible without institutions through which workers can exercise collective power.
Political democracy gives citizens the right to vote.
But citizens spend a large part of their lives at work.
If the workplace is governed as an authoritarian institution, democracy ends at the factory gate, the hospital entrance, the warehouse door or the office building.
Workers may elect a government.
But they may have no say over who manages their workplace.
They may have political rights.
But no right to participate in investment decisions.
They may have freedom of speech.
But speaking critically about an employer may threaten their livelihood.
Trade unions introduce democratic principles into economic life.
Collective bargaining means management cannot simply determine every condition unilaterally.
Workplace representation gives employees a voice.
Collective action gives workers leverage.
The labour movement can therefore be understood as part of the democratic project itself.
22. Repression and the Global Struggle for Workers’ Rights
The decline of union power is not merely an economic phenomenon.
In many countries, workers face direct repression.
The International Trade Union Confederation’s 2026 Global Rights Index reports increasing violations of workers’ rights, including a rise in violations of freedom of speech and assembly, increased violent attacks against workers and greater attacks on civil liberties. It also highlights the growing use of technology to monitor, discipline and silence workers.
This reminds us that trade union rights cannot be separated from civil liberties.
The right to organise requires:
- freedom of association;
- freedom of assembly;
- freedom of expression;
- protection from violence;
- protection against arbitrary detention;
- and legal protection for collective action.
Where governments restrict democratic freedoms, trade unions are often among the first organisations to experience repression.
The labour movement therefore has an interest in defending democracy beyond the workplace.
Likewise, democratic movements have an interest in defending trade unions.
The two struggles are connected.
23. Why the Global Labour Movement Needs International Solidarity
The contemporary corporation is increasingly transnational.
The labour movement must therefore become more international.
This does not mean creating a single world union overnight.
It means building practical networks.
A worker organisation in Sri Lanka should be able to communicate with workers in India.
A garment union in Bangladesh should be able to cooperate with European consumer campaigns.
Workers in African mining communities should be able to coordinate with workers in processing industries elsewhere.
Transport workers should be able to organise across borders.
Technology workers should share strategies about algorithmic management.
The goal is to make it increasingly difficult for capital to use geographical separation as a weapon against labour.
International labour solidarity must also reject racism and nationalism.
Workers should not be encouraged to blame migrants for low wages.
The migrant worker is often the worker with the least bargaining power.
The appropriate response to wage competition is not to exclude migrant workers.
It is to organise them.
The standard should be:
An injury to one group of workers is used by capital to weaken another group of workers.
The answer is solidarity.
24. The Ecological Crisis and the Labour Movement
The ecological crisis introduces another major challenge.
Many industries that provide employment are environmentally destructive.
Coal mining.
Oil extraction.
Petrochemicals.
Industrial agriculture.
Mining.
Transport.
Heavy manufacturing.
Workers understandably fear environmental policies if those policies threaten employment.
Environmental movements sometimes respond by demanding rapid closure without addressing the livelihoods of workers.
That approach can produce a political backlash.
A just ecological transition must therefore be built with workers rather than imposed upon them.
Trade unions should demand:
- guaranteed income during transitions;
- retraining;
- new public investment;
- worker participation in transition planning;
- regional development;
- public ownership where appropriate;
- shorter working hours;
- and secure employment in sustainable industries.
The concept of a just transition is therefore not a compromise between labour and ecology.
It can become the basis for a new alliance between them.
The central principle should be:
No worker should be forced to choose between employment and a liveable planet.
25. The Labour Movement and the Crisis of the Left
The crisis of trade unionism is also a crisis for the political left.
For decades, sections of the left placed enormous emphasis on elections.
Electoral victories matter.
Progressive governments matter.
Public policy matters.
But legislation alone cannot permanently change the balance of economic power.
A government can introduce progressive legislation.
Employers can resist.
Capital can relocate investment.
Financial markets can react.
Companies can reduce production.
Wealth can move across borders.
Political coalitions can change.
Without organised social power, reforms can be reversed.
This is the deeper argument in the source interview: electoral victories and progressive legislation may achieve important reforms, but policies that seriously challenge employer power ultimately require an organised counter-power capable of sustaining them.
Trade unions provide one potential source of that power.
This does not mean unions should become appendages of political parties.
Quite the opposite.
A strong labour movement should be capable of pressuring governments of different political colours.
Its independence is part of its strength.
The left therefore needs to stop treating labour organisation as merely one electoral constituency.
It is a foundation of social power.
26. From Electoral Politics to Social Power
Political parties can win elections.
But social movements can change what governments believe is politically possible.
The history of labour reform demonstrates this repeatedly.
The eight-hour day did not emerge simply because politicians suddenly became enlightened.
Minimum wages did not appear because economists discovered them.
Social insurance did not emerge without pressure.
Public pensions were contested.
Workplace safety was contested.
Collective bargaining was contested.
Every major social reform creates beneficiaries and opponents.
The beneficiaries may be millions of workers.
The opponents may be concentrated and powerful economic interests.
This is why organised labour remains important.
A progressive government without an organised labour movement may find itself negotiating with employers from a position of weakness.
A progressive government with millions of organised workers behind social reforms possesses a different political foundation.
The lesson is not that elections are irrelevant.
The lesson is that electoral politics and labour organisation must reinforce one another.
27. A New Organising Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
What would rebuilding the labour movement actually require?
There is no single formula.
But several principles are increasingly clear.
First: Organise the unorganised
Existing union members cannot be the endpoint.
Unions must devote substantial resources to workers outside traditional strongholds.
Second: Organise sectors, not only individual workplaces
A worker should not lose collective protection because they change employers.
Sectoral organisation can help overcome fragmentation.
Third: Organise precarious workers
Temporary workers, migrants, casual workers and platform workers must become central rather than peripheral.
Fourth: Build workplace leadership
Professional organisers are necessary, but workers themselves must become organisers.
Fifth: Democratise existing institutions
Transparency and member participation are essential.
Sixth: Use technology without allowing technology to replace organisation
Digital communication can help coordinate workers, but online networks cannot substitute entirely for trust and collective relationships.
Seventh: Connect workplace struggles with community struggles
Housing, healthcare, transport, education and environmental issues are labour issues.
Eighth: Build international networks
Capital already operates globally.
Labour must develop corresponding forms of international coordination.
Ninth: Develop political education
Workers need to understand not only what they are fighting for but how economic power works.
Tenth: Develop long-term institutions
A successful labour movement cannot be built entirely through temporary campaigns.
It needs durable organisations.
28. The Importance of Worker Education
One of the most neglected functions of trade unionism is education.
A worker who understands the structure of the company is more capable of organising.
A worker who understands the supply chain can identify points of leverage.
A worker who understands financial structures can challenge claims about affordability.
A worker who understands labour law can recognise employer violations.
A worker who understands economics can challenge the argument that wage increases automatically destroy jobs.
A worker who understands political history can see their own struggle as part of a much longer movement.
Trade union education should therefore include:
- economics;
- labour law;
- workplace organising;
- negotiation;
- industrial history;
- political economy;
- environmental transition;
- digital technology;
- media;
- gender equality;
- migrant rights;
- international solidarity.
Education transforms workers from passive members into conscious participants.
29. Building Worker Power Beyond the Union
The labour movement should also experiment with organisational forms that sit alongside traditional unions.
Worker cooperatives are one example.
A cooperative changes the relationship between workers and ownership.
Instead of workers simply bargaining with an owner, they can collectively own the enterprise.
Cooperatives cannot replace trade unions.
They address a different problem.
A union asks:
“How can workers increase their power within employment?”
A cooperative asks:
“Can workers collectively control the enterprise itself?”
Both questions matter.
Similarly, community organisations can address problems outside the workplace.
Mutual-aid organisations can provide solidarity.
Workers’ centres can organise people who fall outside conventional union structures.
Tenant organisations can connect housing struggles with workplace struggles.
Environmental movements can connect ecological and labour demands.
The future labour movement may therefore be a broader ecosystem rather than a single organisational form.
30. The Question of Class Identity
One of the major historical achievements of trade unionism was the development of collective identity.
Workers who differed in religion, nationality, language or occupation could discover that they shared common interests.
This is harder today.
Modern capitalism can divide workers in countless ways.
Permanent versus temporary.
Citizen versus migrant.
Skilled versus unskilled.
Office worker versus manual worker.
Public versus private.
Old versus young.
Men versus women.
Formal versus informal.
Platform worker versus employee.
The labour movement cannot ignore these differences.
But it must prevent them from becoming permanent divisions.
The purpose of class organisation is not to deny difference.
It is to build solidarity across difference.
That requires serious attention to discrimination.
A union that tolerates racism cannot build lasting solidarity.
A union that ignores women’s workplace experiences cannot organise women effectively.
A union that excludes migrants weakens itself.
The modern working class must be organised as it actually exists.
31. The New Meaning of Solidarity
Solidarity is often presented as a moral principle.
It is also a practical strategy.
If workers are divided, employers can play one group against another.
If workers act together, employer strategies become more difficult.
Solidarity therefore creates collective power.
But solidarity cannot be based simply on slogans.
Workers need to experience it.
A worker must know that if they are disciplined unfairly, colleagues will respond.
A migrant worker must know that the union will defend them.
A temporary worker must know that permanent workers will not accept their exploitation as the price of their own security.
A woman worker must know that harassment will be taken seriously.
A young worker must know that their voice matters.
Solidarity is built through action.
It becomes real when workers see that organisation changes outcomes.
32. Trade Unions and the Future of Socialism
If socialism is understood as the democratic control of economic resources, then organised labour is indispensable.
Workers cannot democratically control the economy if they possess no collective organisation.
Public ownership alone is insufficient.
A state-owned company can still be bureaucratic and authoritarian.
Social ownership requires democratic participation.
Trade unions can be part of that democratic structure.
Workers’ councils, workplace committees, cooperative ownership, sectoral bargaining and democratic public institutions can all contribute.
The socialist project should therefore not imagine the state simply taking ownership of the economy.
It should ask how workers and communities can exercise democratic control over production.
This is a much deeper question.
Who decides what a factory produces?
Who decides whether a hospital is reorganised?
Who decides whether a mine closes?
Who decides how AI is introduced?
Who decides how the profits of productivity increases are distributed?
Who decides whether an enterprise is sold?
These are democratic questions.
And workers need institutions through which they can answer them.
33. From Defensive Organisation to Social Transformation
The labour movement has often been defensive.
It defends wages.
It defends jobs.
It defends pensions.
It defends public services.
It defends workplace rights.
All of these are necessary.
But the labour movement should also develop an offensive vision.
What would a society organised around human needs look like?
What would shorter working hours mean?
What would universal public services mean?
What would democratic control of investment mean?
What would ecological production mean?
What would worker ownership mean?
What would international labour solidarity mean?
What would economic democracy mean?
Without a vision, unions can become permanent defensive organisations.
They fight one concession at a time.
A broader political project can transform individual struggles into a movement.
34. The Strategic Importance of the Strike
The strike remains one of the most powerful instruments available to workers.
Its power comes from a simple fact:
Production depends upon labour.
A corporation may own machines, buildings and technology.
But production requires human beings.
The strike makes that dependence visible.
Yet strikes are costly.
Workers lose wages.
Employers can attempt replacement.
Public opinion can turn against workers.
Governments may intervene.
Therefore effective strike organisation requires preparation.
A strike fund is important.
So is community support.
So are communication systems.
So is democratic decision-making.
A strike should not be treated as an emotional outburst.
It is a strategic confrontation.
The strongest labour movements know when to strike, where to strike and how to build the social alliances necessary to sustain a strike.
35. Why Militancy and Realism Are Not Opposites
The labour movement sometimes divides between “militants” and “moderates.”
This distinction can be misleading.
A militant demand without organisational capacity can produce defeat.
A cautious demand backed by strong organisation can produce significant gains.
The objective should be neither permanent militancy nor permanent moderation.
It should be strategic effectiveness.
Workers should ask:
What can we win?
What power do we possess?
What risks are we prepared to take?
How will management respond?
What support do we have?
What happens if negotiations fail?
What is our next step?
The best organisers combine ambition with realism.
They do not ask workers to take heroic risks merely to demonstrate ideological purity.
But neither do they accept small compromises simply because they are easier.
The question is always:
How can we increase working-class power?
36. The Global Labour Movement and the Future of Capitalism
The future of capitalism is uncertain.
Global economic growth faces ecological constraints.
Automation is transforming employment.
Artificial intelligence is accelerating technological change.
Geopolitical tensions are reshaping trade.
Supply chains are being reorganised.
Inequality remains substantial.
Public services face pressure.
Housing costs have increased sharply in many countries.
Young people face precarious employment in many labour markets.
The International Labour Organization has warned that global labour markets remain vulnerable to economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions and technological change.
In such circumstances, labour organisation becomes a central political question.
The issue is not whether capitalism will change.
It will.
The issue is who will shape the direction of change.
If workers remain weak, technological and economic transformation will primarily serve capital.
If workers rebuild collective power, transformation can be negotiated differently.
37. What a Twenty-First-Century Labour Movement Could Look Like
A future labour movement will probably not look exactly like the trade unionism of 1950.
It may have:
- workplace unions;
- sectoral unions;
- digital membership;
- community organising;
- worker cooperatives;
- international networks;
- migrant worker organisations;
- platform worker associations;
- environmental alliances;
- public-sector unions;
- informal worker organisations;
- and political education networks.
Its members may move between employers more frequently.
Its campaigns may operate across several countries.
Its organising may combine physical meetings with digital platforms.
Its bargaining demands may include algorithmic transparency and climate transition.
Its alliances may include environmentalists, tenants, students, pensioners and community groups.
Its organisational structures may be more decentralised.
But one principle will remain unchanged:
Workers need collective power because individual workers remain economically vulnerable.
38. The Labour Movement and the Asian Century
For Asia Commune, the Asian dimension is particularly important.
Asia contains some of the world’s largest working populations and some of the most important manufacturing and service economies.
It also contains enormous diversity.
Workers in Japan, South Korea, China, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and elsewhere operate under very different legal and economic systems.
Yet regional production chains connect them.
Garments made in Bangladesh may be sold in Europe.
Electronics assembled in East Asia may depend on minerals extracted elsewhere.
Indian technology workers provide services to corporations across the world.
Migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia sustain construction, domestic work, logistics and care economies across the Gulf and beyond.
The Asian labour movement therefore has global significance.
A stronger labour movement in Asia could alter the balance of the global economy.
But that requires organisation that crosses national boundaries while respecting local realities.
39. Sri Lanka and the Challenge of Rebuilding Labour Power
For countries such as Sri Lanka, the question of labour organisation has particular importance.
The country has a long history of trade unionism, plantation labour organisation, public-sector unions and political movements connected to organised labour.
But contemporary labour markets are increasingly fragmented.
Large numbers of workers depend upon informal employment.
Migrant labour is significant.
Export industries are integrated into global supply chains.
Young people face changing employment expectations.
Digital work is expanding.
Economic crisis has placed pressure upon households.
The future labour movement therefore cannot simply reproduce the organisational model of the past.
It must find ways to organise plantation workers, garment workers, public employees, informal workers, transport workers, agricultural workers, migrant workers, platform workers and young workers.
It must also address the relationship between labour rights and the broader questions of economic sovereignty, public services, food security and ecological sustainability.
For Sri Lanka, as for many other countries, rebuilding labour organisation is inseparable from rebuilding democratic economic institutions.
40. A New Social Contract Between Labour, Society and the State
The labour movement of the future should demand a new social contract.
Such a contract could include:
Decent work for all.
Universal social protection.
Collective bargaining rights.
Democratic workplaces.
Shorter working hours.
Living wages.
Equal treatment for migrant workers.
Protection for informal and platform workers.
Worker participation in technological change.
A just ecological transition.
Strong public services.
Democratic control over essential infrastructure.
International labour solidarity.
These demands are not simply a collection of reforms.
Together they represent a different conception of economic life.
The economy should exist to serve society.
Society should not exist to serve the economy.
41. The Central Political Question
The deepest question facing the labour movement is therefore not:
“How can we save trade unions?”
It is:
How can working people regain collective power in an economy increasingly organised around concentrated capital?
Trade unions are one answer.
But the broader answer involves rebuilding institutions of working-class power.
Trade unions.
Cooperatives.
Workers’ councils.
Community organisations.
Mutual-aid networks.
Political movements.
Public institutions.
International solidarity networks.
All can play a role.
The essential principle is collective organisation.
42. A Programme for Rebuilding the Global Labour Movement
A serious international strategy could be built around ten broad objectives.
1. Organise the majority, not merely the already organised
The central measure of success should be how many previously unorganised workers are brought into collective organisation.
2. Make precarious workers central
Temporary, migrant, informal and platform workers must be treated as core members of the working class.
3. Rebuild workplace democracy
Workers should have meaningful participation in decisions affecting their employment.
4. Democratise trade unions
Leadership must remain accountable to members.
5. Invest heavily in organising
Resources should be directed toward new organising rather than merely maintaining existing institutions.
6. Build international solidarity
Global production requires global labour coordination.
7. Link labour with ecological transformation
Climate policy must protect workers while transforming production.
8. Organise technological change
AI and automation should become subjects of collective bargaining.
9. Connect unions with communities
The labour movement should organise around social needs beyond the workplace.
10. Develop a democratic economic vision
Workers need not only defensive demands but a positive vision of economic democracy.
43. The Left Has No Future Without Labour Organisation
This may be the most important conclusion.
A political left can win elections without a strong labour movement.
It can win municipal governments.
It can win parliamentary seats.
It can pass progressive legislation.
It can change public discourse.
All of these achievements matter.
But political power without social power is fragile.
The stronger the challenge to established economic interests, the stronger the counter-pressure will become.
If workers are not organised, who will resist that pressure?
A government can introduce a law.
But workers must have the capacity to defend it.
A government can raise wages.
But employers can resist.
A government can regulate corporations.
But corporations can lobby.
A government can expand public services.
But powerful interests can demand privatisation.
Political institutions therefore require organised social constituencies capable of defending democratic reforms.
The labour movement is one of the most important of these constituencies.
This is why the revival of trade unionism is not a narrow labour issue.
It is a democratic necessity.
44. Beyond Nostalgia
The answer cannot be nostalgia.
The labour movement cannot simply attempt to recreate the industrial world of the mid-twentieth century.
That world no longer exists.
The future must be built from present conditions.
That means organising workers who work from home.
Workers who deliver food.
Workers who care for the elderly.
Workers who clean hotels.
Workers who write software.
Workers who assemble electronics.
Workers who work seasonally.
Workers who cross borders.
Workers whose employer is technically an algorithm.
Workers who operate in informal economies.
Workers who move from one job to another.
The labour movement must follow workers wherever capital has moved.
45. The Final Question: Who Controls the Future?
The great transformations taking place today are often described as technological or economic inevitabilities.
Artificial intelligence is inevitable.
Automation is inevitable.
Globalisation is inevitable.
Platform work is inevitable.
Restructuring is inevitable.
But the consequences are not inevitable.
Technology does not determine how wealth is distributed.
Globalisation does not determine whether workers have rights.
Automation does not determine whether people work fewer hours or become unemployed.
AI does not determine whether productivity benefits workers or shareholders.
Political institutions make those decisions.
And power determines which decisions are possible.
The trade union movement exists because individual workers lack sufficient power.
Collective organisation changes that equation.
This is why trade unions remain relevant.
Not because the past should be restored.
But because the future must be democratically shaped.
Conclusion: Rebuilding the Power to Act
The global labour movement is undoubtedly weaker than it was during much of the twentieth century.
Union density has fallen across most advanced economies.
Collective bargaining has weakened.
Workplaces have fragmented.
Employment has become more precarious.
Capital has become more mobile.
Technology has transformed the organisation of work.
In many countries, trade unionists continue to face repression and attacks on basic democratic rights.
Yet none of this means that the need for collective organisation has disappeared.
Quite the opposite.
The fundamental reason workers organise has not changed.
An individual worker remains weaker than an organised employer.
Collective action remains capable of changing that balance.
The challenge is to rebuild collective organisation under new conditions.
That means organising beyond the traditional factory.
It means reaching precarious and informal workers.
It means organising migrants.
It means developing new strategies for platform workers.
It means confronting algorithmic management.
It means making AI and automation subjects of democratic negotiation.
It means linking labour struggles with ecological transformation.
It means rebuilding international solidarity.
It means democratising existing unions.
It means using the resources of established organisations to organise workers who remain outside them.
It means developing worker education.
It means connecting workplace struggles to struggles over housing, healthcare, public services and the environment.
And it means recovering a political imagination that goes beyond defending what already exists.
The most important lesson from the history of trade unionism is that workers’ power is not given to them.
It is organised.
It is built through relationships of trust.
It is strengthened through collective action.
It is defended through institutions.
And it is expanded when workers discover that their individual problems are connected to broader structures of economic power.
The contemporary left therefore faces a strategic choice.
It can continue to place its hopes primarily in elections, legislation and cultural change.
Or it can rebuild the social foundations upon which lasting political change depends.
This does not mean abandoning electoral politics.
It means understanding that elections are only one arena of struggle.
Parliamentary majorities can pass laws.
But organised workers can give those laws social power.
Governments can introduce reforms.
But organised communities can defend them.
Political parties can articulate programmes.
But workers’ organisations can make those programmes real.
The revival of the labour movement is therefore not simply a question for trade union officials.
It is a question for everyone who believes that democracy should extend into economic life.
It is a question for those who believe that technological progress should serve humanity.
It is a question for those who believe that economic growth should not require ecological destruction.
It is a question for those who believe that workers should have a voice in decisions that determine their lives.
And ultimately, it is a question of who will control the future.
The central lesson is simple:
An individual worker possesses limited bargaining power. Organised workers possess considerably more.
The task of the twenty-first-century labour movement is to discover how to turn that simple truth into a new global politics of solidarity, democracy and working-class power.
The future of the left may depend upon it.
Sources and Further Reading
- International Labour Organization, World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2025. The report examines global labour-market trends, technological change, employment growth, youth unemployment, inequality and regional developments.
- OECD, Membership of Unions and Employers’ Organisations, and Bargaining Coverage: Standing, but Losing Ground, September 2025. The report provides comparative data on union density and collective bargaining across OECD countries.
- International Trade Union Confederation, Global Rights Index 2026. The annual index documents violations of workers’ rights and attacks on freedom of association, assembly and expression.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Union Members — 2025, released February 18, 2026. Provides current U.S. union membership and representation data.
- International Labour Organization, Collective Bargaining and Collective Action in the Platform Economy, 2025. Examines international developments concerning collective bargaining and collective action among platform workers.
- International Labour Organization, Opportunities and Challenges for Decent Work in the Platform Economy in Asia and the Pacific, 2026. Examines platform work, regulation and social protection across Asia and the Pacific.
- International Labour Organization, Digital Labour Platforms: Number of Platforms and Workers, 2026. Examines the growth of digital labour platforms and the continuing problems of measuring platform employment.
- International Labour Organization, Decent Work in the Platform Economy. The ILO’s work on the platform economy includes the adoption in 2026 of Convention No. 193 on decent work in the platform economy.
- Source interview/transcript supplied for this feature, particularly its discussions of union power, class bargaining, socialist organising, industrial unionism, union democracy, bureaucracy, existing union institutions and the political relationship between organised labour and the left.
