Cats, I don't know what industry you work in, but in my experience of Local Authority very few of my colleagues belonged to the union. As a mature student in the 90s, I remember when we went from a position of automatic membership of the NUS being conferred with acceptance of our university ID card, to membership being optional. My (younger) colleagues were not really bothered one way or the other. I found it disturbing.

You're right, the "old-style" unions are gone forever. At one time unions stood for solidarity, and people looking out for one another. If union membership is currently rising, I suspect it's from an instinct to cover one's own arse rather than the kind of commonality of purpose and intent which drove the "old" unions, which were often the lynch-pins of their communities. Now that whole communities are no longer employed in the same industry, the union's community role is redundant.

Despite the emasculating of the unions which Thatcher effectively managed, I must raise my cap to Unison, who have certainly been there when I needed them, and to the NUJ, who have also been fantastic for me and mine in the past.

I have never crossed a picket line. Just saying.