Improving Employment Conditions in Islington: Tackling Work-Based Harms and Promoting Unionism, London, UCL/CAPE

This report explores experiences of work and the potential for union renewal in the London
Borough of Islington (LBI). It emerged out of a series of roundtables on ‘good work’ in 2021,
convened by Islington Council and the Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement (CAPE)
project. Those roundtables identified declining union membership as a key factor contributing to
the increase in seven specific ‘work-based’ harms: low pay, lack of statutory entitlements, poor
health and safety, contractual insecurity, discrimination, absence of worker voice, and welfare
conditionality.
Declining union membership is important because of the associations between unionisation and
good terms and conditions (the union ‘wage premium’, safer workplaces, equality and diversity,
and a better work-life balance), as we explore in section 1.3. It is therefore particularly concerning
that rates of unionisation are lowest in the lowest paid, most precarious occupations, and
amongst minoritised ethnicities and those from a migrant background.
Understanding the challenges facing unions, along with best practice for unions engaging socalled ‘difficult-to-organise’ groups of workers, is crucial. We also consider the idea of ‘community
unionism’ (in section 1.4), where unions and communities collaborate to promote good work, as
a potential strategy to revitalise the trade union movement and open-it up to addressing broader
community concerns.
This report is underpinned by exploratory research designed to investigate these issues by
mapping the distribution of work-based harms in Islington, understanding the barriers to
unionisation, and exploring local authority policy levers to address the situation.