The combination of the marked decline in union membership in the UK, the labour “shake-outs” of the 1980’s and early 1990s and the radical reform of the laws governing industrial action begun in 1980 by the Thatcher Governments, led by 1997 to the lowest ever number of annual days lost arising from industrial action since records began, a total of 235,000. This compares to over 21 million days lost in 1979.

More recently however we have started to see more movement from the trade unions and a notable increase in the number of working days lost through industrial action which rose rising from 235,000 in 1997 to 900,000 in 2004.