“Defiant communities”? The UK trade union community agenda in historical perspective

Abstract

This article offers an overview of both the uses of “community” as a political concept in the UK trade union and labour movement, and of what may be termed a trade union “community” agenda based on the mobilisation of community – financial, moral and political – resources. It appears that “community” unionism has not been a constant or dominant orientation in UK trade union and labour history, with the explicit motive of the “community” being used only sparsely and community resources being tapped primarily as a fallback option by marginal groups of workers or by trade unions cornered in a defensive position. The trajectory of the trade union community agenda has also been checkered. As it was associated with the experiments of the early utopian socialists in the 19th century, its fortune waned during the high point of the modern industrial nation-state in the 19^th and 20^th century, at a time when the UK working-class itself went national then international, before re-emerging in the second half of the 20^th century, as the UK working-class was battered by deindustrialisation and austerity.