Marketing automation for trade unions

Jul 9, 2026By TUC Digital

Union members manage most of their lives through digital interactions. From banking and travel to shopping and public services, they are used to fast, personalised responses. As a result, they expect all organisations they interact with to be responsive, transparent and available whenever they need them. However, many unions still run highly manual processes for … Continue reading Marketing automation for trade unions

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Jul 9, 2026TUC Digital

Digital unionism means security, compliance and trust

Jul 3, 2026By TUC Digital

As unions digitise, they gain new powers. And as we all know, with new power comes new responsibility. Data flows more widely across the union. Work happens across a wider range of devices, platforms and locations. All of this creates opportunity but it also creates risk. The deeper we get into digital unions, the more … Continue reading Digital unionism means security, compliance and trust

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Jul 3, 2026TUC Digital

Digital unionism means showing leadership and managing change

Jun 11, 2026By TUC Digital

By the time digital change becomes visible to our members, most of the difficult work has already happened inside the union. In our experience, tech change projects are mostly about change and less about tech. Problems with the technology itself are rarely the decisive factor in whether projects succeed or fail. That’s more often explained … Continue reading Digital unionism means showing leadership and managing change

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Jun 11, 2026TUC Digital

Digital unionism means a deeper relationship with data

May 26, 2026By TUC Digital

Digital systems generate lots and lots of data. But digital change doesn’t just give trade unions more data. It changes how unions relate to information, insight and organisational memory. Digital unionism means moving beyond seeing data as a by‑product of systems, and towards treating it as a shared organisational resource that supports judgement, learning and … Continue reading Digital unionism means a deeper relationship with data

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May 26, 2026TUC Digital

Digital unionism means skills and organisational culture

May 18, 2026By TUC Digital

When digital change stalls it’s tempting to feel we’ve just reached the limits of what the union’s tech systems can do. But progress is just as often limited by whether we have the skills, roles and culture in place to use our systems well. The same systems have enabled very different outcomes in different unions. … Continue reading Digital unionism means skills and organisational culture

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May 18, 2026TUC Digital

Digital unionism means systems and investment

May 12, 2026By TUC Digital

In the last post, we talked about how digitisation isn’t just about tech – it’s about adapting to meet members’ modern needs and expectations. But of course it is also about tech, and about unions developing a new relationship with it. Tech systems shape what unions are able to do every day. And just as … Continue reading Digital unionism means systems and investment

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May 12, 2026TUC Digital

Digital unionism means meeting members’ expectations

Apr 29, 2026By TUC Digital

When trade unions talk about digital change, it’s easy to start with systems: a new CRM, an app, a website redesign. But when members experience the union, they don’t encounter this technical infrastructure. They encounter journeys. The TUC Digital Lab has worked on many themes around members’ interactions with their unions, such as online joining, … Continue reading Digital unionism means meeting members’ expectations

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Apr 29, 2026TUC Digital

What is digital trades unionism? A short blog series

Apr 29, 2026By TUC Digital

In the 6 years we’ve been operating the TUC Digital Lab programme, the pilot projects, events and shared learning we’ve been running with our affiliated unions has generated a huge amount of content. There are reports, how-to-guides, case studies, workshop write-ups and blogs. It runs to over 330,000 words in all. And as it’s spread … Continue reading What is digital trades unionism? A short blog series

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Apr 29, 2026TUC Digital

Preparing the union for online statutory balloting

Apr 8, 2026By TUC Digital

Online voting in UK trade union statutory ballots is being introduced this year, as part of the government’s broader reforms to modernise workplace rights, under the Make Work Pay agenda. This is something the TUC and unions have consistently campaigned for, over more than two decades. And union experience with indicative ballots means we have a … Continue reading Preparing the union for online statutory balloting

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Apr 8, 2026TUC Digital

TUC digital healthcheck v4 – A new version of our union benchmarking tool

Mar 4, 2026By TUC Digital

We’ve just released the latest major version of the TUC’s digital healthcheck tool, version 4.01. It’s been more than five years since our last version, so we wanted to revisit it and make some changes to reflect the fast-moving world of technology. What’s different, and what’s the same? We’ve looked across the whole tool to … Continue reading TUC digital healthcheck v4 – A new version of our union benchmarking tool

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Mar 4, 2026TUC Digital

Tech unions vs enshittification

Feb 2, 2026By TUC Digital

The internet is getting worse by the day. Platforms like Google, Facebook or Amazon are getting unusable – crammed with intrusive ads, user surveillance and AI slop content. Tech workers who used to add value for users are laid off to improve share prices. It’s all part of the big tech playbook to build monopolies, … Continue reading Tech unions vs enshittification

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Feb 2, 2026TUC Digital

Building union power in the digital age: Lessons from Action Network’s Brian Young

Nov 14, 2025By TUC Digital

Brian Young is the founder and director of Action Network – a progressive tech co-op that’s become a backbone for digital campaigning and organising across the US labour and progressive movements. It operates the Action Network campaign CRM internationally, and is currently about to offer its organising toolset Action Builder to Europe for the first … Continue reading Building union power in the digital age: Lessons from Action Network’s Brian Young

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Nov 14, 2025TUC Digital

Building union power in the digital age: Lessons from Action Network’s Brian Young

Nov 14, 2025By TUC Digital

Brian Young is the founder and director of Action Network – a progressive tech co-op that’s become a backbone for digital campaigning and organising across the US labour and progressive movements. It operates the Action Network campaign CRM internationally, and is currently about to offer its organising toolset Action Builder to Europe for the first … Continue reading Building union power in the digital age: Lessons from Action Network’s Brian Young

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Nov 14, 2025TUC Digital

Video: Why and how unions should use phishing simulation

Oct 24, 2025By TUC Digital

Phishing is the most common form of cyber attack, and in the last couple of years it’s been the starting point for some of the most damaging attacks on unions. Around the world and in the UK, unions have lost millions to scams, had their members’ personal data stolen, and been locked out of their … Continue reading Video: Why and how unions should use phishing simulation

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Oct 24, 2025TUC Digital

Email phishing simulation to keep unions safe

Oct 1, 2025By TUC Digital

Cyber-crime is growing year on year in the UK. At the same time trade unions’ reliance on digital technology to operate effectively raises the stakes ever higher. If our computer networks are compromised by criminals, the results could be disastrous for our ability to operate, our finances, and the trust of our members. Even with … Continue reading Email phishing simulation to keep unions safe

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Oct 1, 2025TUC Digital

Does your union still have Windows 10 PCs? Here’s what to do before Microsoft support ends

Sep 24, 2025By TUC Digital

Back in 2015, Microsoft launched Windows 10. It quickly became the go-to operating system for businesses and individuals alike, thanks to an improved user interface, stability and compatibility with a wide range of hardware. But as technology moves on, so too does support. With Windows 11 having now been available for four years, Microsoft has … Continue reading Does your union still have Windows 10 PCs? Here’s what to do before Microsoft support ends

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Sep 24, 2025TUC Digital

How are unions using AI? What should our next steps be?

Sep 5, 2025By TUC Digital

A year on from our first TUC Digital Lab workshop exploring how unions might make use of Artificial Intelligence, we got together again to take a deeper dive into the topic. We were joined by Hannah O’Rourke of progressive digital network Campaign Lab to look at what unions had learned in the last year about … Continue reading How are unions using AI? What should our next steps be?

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Sep 5, 2025TUC Digital

Data visualisation for trade unions

Jul 28, 2025By TUC Digital

We all aspire to ground our decisions in real data where possible, giving our unions’ activities the greatest chance of success. But in reality, there are often barriers to achieving this. Unions have lots of data, but it may be trapped in systems that few people can access. Sometimes data is paper based, in files … Continue reading Data visualisation for trade unions

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Jul 28, 2025TUC Digital

Online balloting moves closer for unions

Jul 14, 2025By TUC Digital

Online voting in union statutory elections has been a long time coming. The TUC launched our first campaign for eballoting in 2002, and unions started using it for non-statutory elections 25 years ago this year. Today, other organisations already make widespread use of the technology – from appointing boards for mutuals and NGOs, to electing … Continue reading Online balloting moves closer for unions

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Jul 14, 2025TUC Digital

New rights, new tech and union growth in Australia.

Jun 19, 2025By TUC Digital

Over the past three years, Australian unions have grown by an impressive 12.3%. Growth has been across most industries and in most unions. Particular areas have been in childcare and early years, amongst casualised industrial workers, and in the gig economy. New members have skewed younger and female. These achievements come on the back of … Continue reading New rights, new tech and union growth in Australia.

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Jun 19, 2025TUC Digital