Introduction

This chapter gives an overview of the changing face of British trade unionism and provides the context in which UNISON emerged as the largest United Kingdom trade union. The chapter identifies essential elements in UNISON’s new model of democracy and provides an overview of the research approach. UNISON can be categorised as an industrial union since its primary area of organisation is in public services — despite successive waves of privatisation ensuring the transfer of services, and workers, to the voluntary and private sectors. Finally, the chapter also presents an overview of this book. The book describes how women in two different geographical regions create a separate space in which to define their own interests. It looks at the attempts of the largest British trade union, UNISON, to support equality of representation and participation amongst its female-dominated membership. It emphasises that UNISON’S structure contains some very necessary elements for gender democracy.