ABSTRACT
High unemployment presents trade unions with grave problems, sapping their bargaining power and depriving them of members. Unemployed workers represent a potential source of cheap labour and strikebreaking. Recognizing these threats, unions invariably claim to speak for and represent the unemployed. Theoretically, they may attempt to devise inclusive strategies with which to incorporate the needs and interests of the unemployed, thereby bridging, in the name of working class solidarity, the divide between employed and unemployed workers. Yet historically, the role of unions as agents of working class solidarity has been ambiguous. Unions have usually struggled to maintain the unity of the employed workforce, while their relationship with the unemployed has been uneasy. To a large extent, unemployed workers tend to move, and then remain, beyond the ambit of trade unionism (Richards 2001, 1995: 29-35).
