Social Movement Unionism is a trend of theory and practice in contemporary trade unionism which is strongly associated with the organising model of trade unionism. It also overlaps with community unionism. Social Movement Unionism attempts to integrate workers, trade unions and the labour movement into broader coalitions for social and economic justice. Thus, in principle, unions and other organisations support each other in what are seen as mutually beneficial goals. The question is how useful and successful this model is. There have been widespread attempts in the US to operationalise the concept: Kim Moody will assess this as well as examining the theory. Derborah Littman's union, UNISON, has been involved in building alliances with local community organisations.
Deborah Littman has been a National Officer for UNISON since 1992. Previously she taught sociology at Ryerson University in Toronto. She specialises in bargaining research and campaigning around low pay and the living wage. Deborah has developed much of UNISON’s evidence on the national minimum wage and has helped the union to build alliances with local community organisations. She is Vice-Chair of the Trustees of London Citizens, a broad-based alliance of faith groups, community organisations and trade union branches. She also sits on the Executive of the Fair Pay Network and the Advisory Committee of the Joseph Rowntree funded Minimum Income Standards project.
