The relaunch of the Trades Union Congress

Despite the institutional bias in British industrial relations research, one of the oldest institutions, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), has been neglected by researchers. This article seeks to rectify this deficiency through an analysis of the formal relaunch of the TUC since 1994 under its new General Secretary, John Monks. It reviews the internal reforms and innovations in policy that comprise the relaunch and identifies two competing visions of the union future that lie at its centre. In the first of these, the TUC's role is to act as an authoritative social partner in relations with government and employers, while in the second its function is to promote, co-ordinate and support organizing activity by its member unions. Each of these perspectives on the TUC's role is informed by experience overseas in continental Europe in the one case and in Australia and the United States in the other. The article concludes that social partnership and the 'organizing model' are not easily reconciled and that, despite the relaunch, the TUC has yet to make a key strategic choice: whether to follow the European or the North American route as it enters the twenty-first century.