The SoR’s 2025 Trade Union and Industrial Relations engagement report has shown significant growth in member engagement in society events and activities.
Published for discussion ahead of the 2025 Annual Delegates Conference (ADC)next month, the report also shows impressive increases in representative numbers.
During 2024, 173 new reps were accredited, meaning there are now 1,000 rep roles being filled by 779 individual members, as some have taken multiple roles (industrial, health and safety or union learning) in their workplace.
Last year also saw more than 5,000 registrations for SoR events and seminars, with more than 2,500 in attendance at the Rep Summit, ADC, or managers’ conference both in person and online.
Novel initiatives from the previous year also proved popular, such as the Mind Your Money online series.
'Use this engagement positively'
SoR executive director for industrial strategy Dean Rogers said: “These are hugely encouraging levels of member engagement at a time when many unions and membership organisations report how difficult it is for their members to maintain an active involvement in their organisations. From the union perspective, the most important thing for me is that we use this engagement positively, including listening and showing that we value our members' input.
“Being able to listen and ask members their thoughts, views and ideas means that our national policies and outputs genuinely reflect our members priorities and realities. It also helps us present a deeper understanding of issues to policy makers when we are representing members collectively.”
In order to ensure proper representation, the engagement report also asked about the identities of representatives in the SoR. The insights from the report include:
- 70 per cent of reps declare their gender as women
- 20 per cent of reps are under 30
- 52 per cent of reps are between 30 and 40
- 25 per cent are 50 or over
- 33 per cent of reps declare their nationality and ethnicity as non-White British or non-White European
These findings reflect that radiography remains a young and increasingly diverse profession, Mr Rogers added.
The overall ratio of reps to members in the SoR is one in 30 – which is “almost certainly significantly lower than any other TUC union”, the report explained.
A lower ratio means members have a better level of access to reps, it added.
'From strength to strength'
Mr Rogers continued: “It’s also really important that we can provide the best support to all of our active members – from information and communication to training in their roles. Our active reps and members are the living embodiment of our culture in workplaces showing who we are and what we are about.
“Helping and supporting them as best we can is something we are constantly reviewing and trying to improve on – with feedback from this engagement. I’m excited by plans for investing in additional rep training via our new Learning Platform that are also outlined in the Engagement Report. This will help us to continue to go from strength to strength.”
The full TUIR 2025 Engagement Report will be released during ADC, taking place in London from 28-30 April.
(Image: Dean Rogers)