Steve Davies

Honorary Research Fellow Cardiff University

daviess27@cardiff.ac.uk 2920874435 @unioneyes

Current Research:

The public service ethos and trade union membership
Outsourcing public services to the third sector Union organising around global sports mega-events
Trade union use of International Framework Agreements along international supply chains
Public service reform in Wales

Trade Union Membership, Associational Life and Wellbeing

Overview This project builds on previous WISERD research into geographical variations in trade union membership in Wales. (Beynon, Davies and Davies, 2012). The research programme derives from this analysis, which suggested that in South Wales collective understandings, rooted in an earlier period of unionisation, are spilling over into the contemporary period. This work was supported…

Research Team: Alex Bryson (Department of Social Science, UCL), Helen Blakely (Cardiff University), Huw Beynon (Cardiff University), Rhys Davies (Cardiff University), Steve Davies (Cardiff University)

Trade unions and social media

This project is currently considering the potential value of an analysis of virtual patterns of trade union organisation and mobilisation and specifically the contribution of social media to the rescaling of trade unionism. This includes both: the virtual linkages of the trade union movement with other forms of social and political activism; and the virtual…

Research Team: Helen Blakely (Cardiff University), Huw Beynon (Cardiff University), Rhys Davies (Cardiff University), Steve Davies (Cardiff University), Wil Chivers (Cardiff University)

Reports and Briefings

Trade Union Responses to the Changing World of Work

This report focuses on the strategic capacity of unions to both develop old, and build new, resources and capabilities in response to the rapidly changing world of work. While there are important variations across countries and regions, a number of global trends present challenges to trade unions.

Other

Investigating the Patterns and Prevalence of UK Trade Unionism on Twitter

This paper reports on on-going exploratory research into the prevalence and patterns of social media use by trade unions in the United Kingdom. Social media platforms, like Twitter, are used by unions to organize and mobilize existing and potential members by communicating relevant content, which often engages politicians and the news media. However, there is…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Work and Labour Markets | Trade unions and social media | July 2017

Reports and Briefings

Labour is part of the team: A manual for campaigning in mega-sporting events

There are many ways of looking at global sports and the mega-events that they have created. This manual examines global sports mega-events from the point of view of the unions that represent the workers who make them possible – not the athletes and coaches, but primarily the construction workers who build the stadia and textile…

Inequalities, Work and Labour Markets | June 2017

Working Paper

Chinese multinationals: threat to, or opportunity for, trade unions? The case of Sinohydro in Ghana

There is a growing literature on global Chinese companies, but this tends to be at a very general level. There is little research to date on the effect of Chinese involvement on workers and their unions. Although focussed on one company, SINOHYDRO, this paper addresses questions of importance to construction unions globally: What is the…

Inequalities, Work and Labour Markets | May 2017

Journal Articles

Sources of variation in trade union membership across the UK: the case of Wales

This article deals with issues relating to trade union density and the fact that while over the past 30 years, union densities have followed a declining path in all regions, this retreat was not uniform across space. Analysis of the Labour Force Survey reveals that Wales exhibits among the highest levels of union density in…

Civil Society, Localities, Work and Labour Markets | May 2012

Media

ITV coverage of the 1984-85 miners’ strike

8th March 2024 | Helen Blakely, Huw Beynon, Ian Rees Jones, Jean Jenkins, Martin O'Neill, Rhys Davies, Steve Davies

Following our recent event, ‘The past in the present: Reflections on coal mining and the miners’ strike 1984-85’ we were featured on a special ITV Wales programme, which aired on Monday 4 March and looked at how the events of 1984-85 continue to shape Wales’ economy, people, politics and communities. The coverage featured one of…

Civil Society, Work and Labour Markets

Blog

The UK Strike Wave: ‘the genie is out of the bottle’?

16th May 2023 | Helen Blakely, Steve Davies

2023 brought a new wave of strikes following six months of increasing industrial action across the country. More and more workers, including those in key public sector roles, voted for industrial action often with huge majorities and mostly comfortably clearing the high ballot turnout threshold imposed by government legislation aimed at making strikes more difficult….

Work and Labour Markets

Blog

Leverage campaigns and how they work

30th September 2021 | Steve Davies

In this third and final part of my blog series exploring the recent election of new Unite leader, Sharon Graham, I’ll be focusing on leverage campaigns and how they work. As a highly contentious topic, they form a key part of Graham’s strategy for organising Unite into a union of “strike ready workplaces”, but are…

Work and Labour Markets

Blog

So who is Sharon Graham and what does she stand for?

30th September 2021 | Steve Davies

In the second part of this three-post blog series exploring the recent election of new Unite leader, Sharon Graham, I’ll explain a bit more about her priorities and approach. I’ll focus more on one particular aspect of her strategy in the final part of the series: Leverage campaigns and how they work. I interviewed her…

Work and Labour Markets

Blog

Unite’s shock election result

29th September 2021 | Steve Davies

With both the TUC and Labour holding annual conferences one after the other, much attention was on the unions’ newest leader, Sharon Graham. Her election as general secretary of the UK and Ireland’s most important union, Unite, came as a shock to most of the commentariat. In this, the first part of a three-post blog…

Work and Labour Markets

Blog

The pit closures of the 1980s – part of Mrs Thatcher’s green eco-strategy?

9th August 2021 | Steve Davies

The 1984-85 miners’ strike has once again hit the headlines, despite ending 36 years ago. This time what has grabbed the media’s attention is a claim by Prime Minister Boris Johnson that Margaret Thatcher’s closure of the pits after the strike was part of a green, eco-strategy of the Conservative government. On a visit to…

Work and Labour Markets | Trade Union Membership, Associational Life and Wellbeing, Trade unions, grass roots activism and solidarity

Blog

COVID-19: the role of trade unions

8th June 2020 | Helen Blakely, Steve Davies

The impact of Covid-19 on the economy and the world of work is unprecedented: full or partial lockdown measures are affecting approximately 80 per cent of the global workforce, with the harshest effects falling disproportionately on unprotected workers and those working in the informal economy[1]. For trade unions, the Covid-19 pandemic has cast light on…

Civil Society, Work and Labour Markets | Trade Union Membership, Associational Life and Wellbeing

News

WISERD launches interactive UnionMaps service

9th September 2019 | Alex Bryson, Helen Blakely, Huw Beynon, Rhys Davies, Steve Davies

Today, WISERD launches a new interactive service allowing users to access data on union membership for over 400 unitary authority and local authority districts of Great Britain. UnionMaps allows users to produce area reports of union membership for a particular location or explore how different measures of union membership vary across Great Britain. Since its…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Localities, Work and Labour Markets | Trade Union Membership, Associational Life and Wellbeing

News

WISERD to present at TUC Congress 2019

28th August 2019 | Helen Blakely, Katy Huxley, Rhys Davies, Steve Davies, Wil Chivers

On Monday 9th September, a team of WISERD researchers from Cardiff University, Helen Blakely, Wil Chivers, Rhys Davies, Steve Davies and Katy Huxley, will share the latest findings from our research on trade union membership in the UK, to the TUC Congress. The 151st annual congress event will take place at the Brighton Centre and attract hundreds of delegates representing every…

Civil Society, Data & Methods, Localities, Work and Labour Markets | Trade Union Membership, Associational Life and Wellbeing, Trade unions and social media

News

Global trade union organisation recognises WISERD’s research impact

24th July 2018 | Helen Blakely, Steve Davies

The importance of a new report Trade Union Responses to the Changing World of Work, written by Dr Helen Blakely and Dr Steve Davies, which looks at the trade union responses to the changing world of work around the world, has been recognised by UNI Global Union. In a letter from UNI Global Union’s General Secretary,…

Civil Society, Inequalities, Work and Labour Markets | Trade Union Membership, Associational Life and Wellbeing

News

Young people are leading a growing movement against low pay and precarious work

28th June 2018 | Helen Blakely, Steve Davies, Wil Chivers

Strikes have taken place at McDonald’s and TGI Friday’s restaurants across the UK in recent months. These strikes are the first of their kind in the UK, instigated by a new generation of trade union members fighting for better pay and fairer working conditions. At the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and…

Civil Society, Inequalities, Work and Labour Markets | Trade Union Membership, Associational Life and Wellbeing, Trade unions and social media

Blog

Trade Union responses to the changing world of work

29th May 2018 | Helen Blakely, Steve Davies

WISERD researcher Dr Helen Blakely is working with UNI Global Union to identify trade unions’ responses to the changing world of work from around the world. This work is being presented at UNI Global Union’s World Congress in June 2018, the largest single global union gathering in the UK in 2018. Here they outline some…

Civil Society, Work and Labour Markets | Trade Union Membership, Associational Life and Wellbeing

Blog

How the UK’s first #McStrike was tweeted

27th April 2018 | Helen Blakely, Steve Davies, Wil Chivers

In September 2017, McDonald’s workers went on strike for the first time in the UK. Researchers at WISERD analysed the social media conversation that surrounded the ‘McStrike’at the time. With a second McStrike scheduled for the 1st May Wil Chivers, Helen Blakely and Steve Davies outline key findings from this research. Young workers unite McDonald’s…

Civil Society, Inequalities, Work and Labour Markets | Trade unions and social media

Seminar

TUC Congress 2019 “The report of my death has been greatly exaggerated”: The resilience and renewal of trade unions

9th September 2019 | Brighton

Unions have faced decades of hostile legislation designed to make them ineffective, have seen the collapse of parts of the economy that were union strongholds and the growth of precarious work. They have been written off as out of date and out of time. Yet although union density and membership have declined since the 1980s,…

Conference

The UNI Leadership Summit on the Future World of Work

9th October 2017

Helen Blakely presented findings from ongoing work with Steve Davies to an audience of over 100 experts, activists, and academics gathered at UNI Global Union’s headquarters for the “Future World of Work Leadership Summit,” a discussion on the challenges and solutions to digitization.

Training

Campaigning unions, Devolved government: reflections on state, unions and civil society

12th November 2015 | Cardiff

Based on a series of interviews with trade union leaders in Wales, this presentation examined how the changes around devolution have provided opportunities for trade unions in Wales to influence governmental decision making that do not exist in England. However there are limits to this, and the presentation also reviewed how trade unions in Wales are using…

Seminar

Fighting Back: What Lessons Can Be Learned From the Union Struggles of the 1980s?

28th February 2013 | Cardiff

The 1980s was a time of mass closure of manufacturing and mining industries in Britain.

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