Organising methods and member recruitment in Irish trade unions

Purpose: This paper seeks to explore the recruiting and organising methods used by Irish full-time union officials to recruit new members in the private sector of the economy. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis is based on a survey of full-time union officials in eight Irish trade unions. Findings: Results indicate that the use of organising techniques by officials had no significant impact on changes in membership numbers but did have a significant and positive impact on reported changes in new members. However, the variance explained was extremely modest. Research limitations/implications: A potential limitation is that the organising model is assessed solely from the perspective of full-time union officials. An area for future research would be to capture the attitudes and experiences of local activists involved in organising. Practical implications: The demands of the organising approach require great commitment in terms of time and financial resources for unions. Yet the returns from this investment may be slight as only a relatively weak relationship was found between the number of organising methods used and changes in membership numbers and the recruitment of new members. Originality/value: To date there has been little systematic study of either the recruitment methods used by Irish trade unions or the relative success of different approaches. Based on a survey of Irish full-time union officials, this paper attempts to address this lacuna.