One of the risks in digitising sometimes old-fashioned systems and processes is that you can naturally look at those organisations striving to be at the leading edge of change, and assume the union needs what they’re trying. Innovation can easily slip into being defined by what’s newest, rather than what’s necessary. In the TUC Digital … Continue reading Digital unionism means innovating with purpose
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This week has seen unions get more rights around elections and strike votes, with the government overturning a decades-old ban on unions voting by any other means than post. From 25 August 2026, we can now consult our members in ways that the majority of them would expect from us – using email, SMS or … Continue reading How ready are our union branches for electronic balloting?
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As unions digitise, something subtle but significant happens. Technology doesn’t just change processes, it can change where power sits inside the organisation. From the TUC’s early online community unionreps.org.uk to our campaigning platform megaphone.org.uk and innovation in our affiliated unions, we’ve seen digitisation consistently support new forms of decentralisation. It gained a huge boost over … Continue reading Digital unionism means decentralisation and power
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Union members manage most of their lives through digital interactions. From banking and travel to shopping and public services, they are used to fast, personalised responses. As a result, they expect all organisations they interact with to be responsive, transparent and available whenever they need them. However, many unions still run highly manual processes for … Continue reading Marketing automation for trade unions
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As unions digitise, they gain new powers. And as we all know, with new power comes new responsibility. Data flows more widely across the union. Work happens across a wider range of devices, platforms and locations. All of this creates opportunity but it also creates risk. The deeper we get into digital unions, the more … Continue reading Digital unionism means security, compliance and trust
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By the time digital change becomes visible to our members, most of the difficult work has already happened inside the union. In our experience, tech change projects are mostly about change and less about tech. Problems with the technology itself are rarely the decisive factor in whether projects succeed or fail. That’s more often explained … Continue reading Digital unionism means showing leadership and managing change
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Digital systems generate lots and lots of data. But digital change doesn’t just give trade unions more data. It changes how unions relate to information, insight and organisational memory. Digital unionism means moving beyond seeing data as a by‑product of systems, and towards treating it as a shared organisational resource that supports judgement, learning and … Continue reading Digital unionism means a deeper relationship with data
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When digital change stalls it’s tempting to feel we’ve just reached the limits of what the union’s tech systems can do. But progress is just as often limited by whether we have the skills, roles and culture in place to use our systems well. The same systems have enabled very different outcomes in different unions. … Continue reading Digital unionism means skills and organisational culture
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In the last post, we talked about how digitisation isn’t just about tech – it’s about adapting to meet members’ modern needs and expectations. But of course it is also about tech, and about unions developing a new relationship with it. Tech systems shape what unions are able to do every day. And just as … Continue reading Digital unionism means systems and investment
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When trade unions talk about digital change, it’s easy to start with systems: a new CRM, an app, a website redesign. But when members experience the union, they don’t encounter this technical infrastructure. They encounter journeys. The TUC Digital Lab has worked on many themes around members’ interactions with their unions, such as online joining, … Continue reading Digital unionism means meeting members’ expectations
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