Twenty years ago, every third employee was a member of one of the trade unions. In this respect, the Czech Republic belonged to traditional trade union countries like Germany or Austria. Since then, however, the number of trade unionists has been rapidly declining.
“Our research shows that the share of employees organized in unions has decreased to 13 percent in twenty years,” says Renata Kyzlinková from Research Institute of Labor and Social Affairs (RILSA). The results of the project, which the institute has been working on for the past three years, were published by the researchers on Tuesday.
The decline in trade unionists was caused by a combination of several factors. “The labor market is changing radically. Formerly atypical forms of work are increasing, such as work for agencies, platform work or self-employment. Unions react to this with a delay,” believes another of the authors of the survey, Aleš Kroupa.
Jobs change, unions not so much
Other reasons for disinterest in union membership include the fact that employers offer individual benefits more often than before. The researchers also noted a growing self-confidence among workers who are confident that they will protect their interests even without a union.
The union base is thus aging and young members cannot be recruited. According to the research, the share of members over the age of 50 increased from 35 to 46 percent in twenty years. “Young people often don’t know about unions at all. This is a new phenomenon, twenty years ago awareness of trade unions was better,” says Kroupa. “Here, trade unionists have great reserves in communication,” he adds.
Importance of trade unions for employees
| What do you think about unions? | 2003 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| Unions are necessary to protect the interests of workers | 30.4% | 19.9% |
| Unions are necessary to protect the interests of workers, but we can also do without them | 49.4% | 40.0% |
| Unions are unnecessary to protect the interests of workers | 12.8% | 13.8% |
| Unions tend to harm the interests of workers, it is better without them | 3.0% | 3.3% |
| I don’t know | 4.5% | 23.0% |
| Source: rilsa.cz |
In contrast to previous decades, trade unions have already lost the stigma of a communist organization from the days of the previous regime. “There are very few categorical ideological opponents of trade unions, even among right-wing employees,” describes Štěpánka Lehmann from RILSA.
The decline in the trade union base is also evident in absolute numbers. While in the 1990s there were millions of trade unionists, today their number is estimated at around 500,000. Basic organizations are usually grouped into unions that form trade union headquarters.
The most numerous of them is Czech-Moravian Confederation of Trade Unions. Its chairman Josef Středula SZ Byznys did not respond to questions. The strongest union is OS Kovo. Alongside these structures stand other organizations, such as an influential union MB Kovo representing 30,000 employees of Škoda Auto.
Trade unionists among the self-employed
Trade unionists see one of the opportunities for development mainly in reaching out to workers who have not yet been members of trade unions.
“Only two percent of the self-employed are organized, but the interest is quite high,” says Kyzlinková. “Once unions target them and offer them specific services, such as insurance or legal services when concluding copyright contracts, they can be successful,” he thinks.
The possibility of organizing self-employed persons in certain professions was opened in 2022 by the European Commission, which allowed them to bargain collectively with customers of their services without such an agreement being considered a cartel. “This mainly concerns professions that have one dominant consumer of services, for example translators or journalists,” says Kyzlinková.
However, the research showed that only four percent of self-employed persons without employees would like to be employed. “However, roughly 10 percent of the self-employed consider unions necessary to protect the interests of workers. There we see the potential for the trade union movement,” says Kyzlinková.
Similarly, unions could also defend the interests of digital platform workers, typically couriers or food transporters.
