WE’RE living through tough times. The last five years in particular have been a living hell for many as jobs are lost, out-of-work benefits are slashed and decent affordable housing is snatched away from the reach of some of the most vulnerable in our society.

Many of the workplace privileges fought for in past decades are now taken for granted, and few now believe there was once a time when maternity pay did not exist — nor paid holidays or an employer’s duty of care, to name just a few.

In the hard-bitten world of big business, many employers don’t want unions in the workplace because they’re seen as a threat to big profits.

Fairer pay and conditions for the workers means fewer big bonuses for the top management and the shareholders.

The exploitation of low-paid foreign workers continues to make for a profitable and malleable workforce.

As the number of meaningful, decently paid and full-time jobs declines and traditional industries have shut down, trade union membership has fallen too. So now we need our unions — and they need us — more than ever.

For many important reasons, we cannot allow unions to dissolve and become just a good idea that belonged to a happier past. Unions’ future is the future of all working-class people.

Trade unions were once seen as criminal organisations; this measure was lifted under a recommendation by the Royal Commission in 1867 and the TUC was founded that same year.

The recommendation recognised that the establishment of unions was to the advantage of both employers and employees. It’s hard to imagine that being seen as the case today, where the employer holds most of the cards and employees are blacklisted for speaking up against dangerous practices, or for talking too loudly about workers’ rights.

For decades following the Royal Commission recommendation unions flourished, growing year-on-year in number and membership.

Membership peaked at around 13 million in 1979 — the year in which Labour was voted out of office, and the advent of 11 terrible years under Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government.

Thatcher made no bones about her hatred of the unions. Direct attacks and persistent onslaughts were made to weaken union powers throughout the ’80s, in particular by making it more difficult to strike legally, and criminalising flying pickets in an attempt to weaken strikes.

The police became Thatcher’s private army, flown in to stop legitimate protest and meting out physical violence to peaceful protesters. Who can forget the Battle of the Beanfield?

Those who were there in the ’80s will remember the miners’ strike of 1984-5, and marches up and down the country as workers fought to hang on to their rights and their jobs in the face of rampant privatisation.

The unstoppable march of “greed is good” capitalism that grew like a cancer on Thatcher’s watch changed the face of work forever.

The wholesale sell-off of our state-run utilities, the destruction of the British car industry, the sell-off of council housing and the crushing of anyone who dared to make a stand against the right-wing government.

Much can be written about the attacks on the ordinary British people under Thatcher, but that’s for another article.

If anyone thought that Thatcher’s anti-union laws would be repealed under the next Labour government, they were disappointed.

Led by Tony Blair, new Labour did nothing to reverse Thatcher’s changes, and we still suffer from that lack of will to return to us, the wealth-creators, the powers we once had.

This is why union membership is more vital today than at any other time since the 1980s. We have a duty to ourselves and our comrades to speak up, because those in control will shut us down if we let them.

The steady decline in numbers of union members — steepest in the 1980s — appears to have slowed. However in September 2012 membership dropped below 6 million for the first time since the 1940s according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS).

This drop is directly attributable to the shutting down of the heavily unionised British steelwork, mining and car manufacturing industries under Thatcher, the rapidly shrinking public sector and the more recent outsourcing of services to other countries.

There’s also the death of the closed shop, outlawed by Thatcher as part of her hatchet attacks on our rights, and the fact that most unemployed people and those struggling in zero-hours contracts — a significant proportion of the working-class under this toxic coalition government — do not belong to a union.

Then there’s the poisonous legacy of the right-wing press which continues to attack union membership, and a whole generation who are either unaware of what unions stand for or who have been brainwashed into thinking, vaguely, that they are “bad.”

However, there has been a rise in private-sector membership of late, which shows that our unions are getting the message across and that those same workers are increasingly aware of job insecurity. There is no longer a “job for life” culture in Britain.

ONS statistics show that union membership is at its lowest among the 16-24 age group.

So the fight for the future must begin with recruiting young people to our unions, because young people are the future.

Where we have led, they must follow, taking the clarion call to their peers and forging a new strength and vision of hope.

We have to teach them the proud history of our unions, point out our achievements and rally new blood to help safeguard our collective futures.

We need to shake free of the miasma of helplessness the past 30 years have brought us down to and believe again that we can make changes, that we do not have to put up with what comes because we have no alternative.

The alternative we have is our strength in numbers, a bigger voice that is the voice of us all, through our unions.

I have been a union member since my 20s, first in Nalgo (later Unison) and now Unite. I joined up within days of starting a new job at a London council, when the local shop steward collared me and made such a passionate case for membership that I’d have been a fool to refuse.

I became a steward myself, rising to become co-convener of a self-organised group and convener of the women’s group.

I attended conferences where I had the privilege of hearing comrades speak passionately about issues that concerned us, and enjoyed the feeling of strength and unity with others from across Britain.

In those days, we had something big and threatening to fight against — Thatcher. And how we fought, even if we didn’t always win.

Times change and the world moves on, but we still face the same challenges and the same common struggles as we’ve always done, against the powerful and moneyed elite who rule over us.

There are more of us than there are of them, however, so if we organise we can make the changes we need to see.

So why belong to a union? My union makes me feel that I am worth caring about, worth fighting for, and I know it will always be there to support me with advice and practical assistance when I need it.

I’m in a stronger position because of my membership. I benefit from the fantastic training courses offered to improve my skills as a workplace rep so I can do the best for my members. 

I love the fact that through our learning reps the union can upgrade the basic skills of everyone in the workplace who asks for them, free of charge, to help improve self-esteem and offers of work in the future.

I love the camaraderie experienced on those reps’ training courses where, however, I’m still often the only woman present in a classroom full of men.

Even within the membership the gender balance is not equal when it comes to unpaid roles, so women need to speak up, say why they don’t seek out roles as workplace reps, show the union what barriers are preventing them from being more active and work together to break down those barriers.

The battle was not won when unions were decriminalised over 100 years ago. It was not won when we helped overturn the poll tax. There are new challenges every day, and we need to be ready as an army of ordinary people to watch those who seek to exploit us and to fight them every inch of the way for justice.

Every new union member swells the ranks of the people’s army. We need to speak out, and be sure our voices are heard. And we need to start today.