Worker representation through civil society organizations: evidence from the United Kingdom

There is increasing interest in the role of civil society organizations (CSOs), advocacy, identity and single-issue organizations, in representing the interests of workers. The purpose of this article is to describe the form of representation developed by national-level CSOs in the United Kingdom. To this end, it examines which groups within the working population these organizations seek to represent, the interests upon which they offer representation and the methods they use. Throughout there is a comparison with the form of interest representation offered by UK trade unions. The aim is to identify the specificity of CSOs as institutions of worker representation but also the characteristics they share with trade unionism, the default form.