TUC Digital Lab

Digital unionism means meeting members’ expectations

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.

What is digital trades unionism? A short blog series

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. As it’s spread over so many documents and such a long period of time, there’s probably nobody who’s actually read it all.

Preparing the union for online statutory balloting

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 lot of good practice to draw on as we extend the tactics to strike votes and leadership votes.

But there are also a number of areas where the move to new ballots means a difference in importance, scale and audience, and there will be complications with the changes, due to the limitations of the new legislation.

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

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.

Tech unions vs enshittification

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, degrade user experience, exploit staff, and lock us into broken systems. Tech critic Cory Doctorow calls the process ‘enshittification’.

Back in November, we held a webinar with Cory and tech sector union activists from Prospect, UTAW and Unite, to explore how the concept of enshittification affects tech workers and users alike – and how unions have a big role in the fight back against Big Tech’s worst instincts.

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

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 time.

Brian’s experience spans decades of union and political campaigns and organising, so when we found he was passing through the UK, we were keen to get him in front of a room of union campaigners and organisers. Here’s a bit of what he told us.

Video: Why and how unions should use phishing simulation

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 own technology by ransomware.

Unions are particularly at risk. We have limited budgets and often operating on older tech. We have large caches of sensitive data. And as highly decentralised organisations, we’re uniquely exposed to the risks of shadow IT, with all the risks that brings.

Email phishing simulation to keep unions safe

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 strong IT security systems, the weakest link is often in human mistakes made by staff and activists. People can be tricked into giving away access to systems and data. There is an ever-growing amount of scam email flowing into our unions at all levels, attempting to do that. This so-called “phishing” is the most common form of attack, but also the most common way for the most serious types of attacks to start out.

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

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 confirmed that Windows 10 will reach end of support on 14 October 2025.

Unions may still have machines that use Windows 10, and this could become a security risk. This blog looks at what the implications are for unions, and what their options could be.

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

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 whether and how they should develop internal usage of AI.