"USDAW banner" [NMLH.2025.43]

Catalogue Number
NMLH.2025.43

Object Name
banner

People
Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw)

Description
The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) was founded in 1947 through the ammalgamation of the National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers, and the National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousement and Clerks. Some other unions have since merged in, including the Amalgamated Society of Boot and Shoe Makers and Repairers in 1955, and the Scottish Union of Bakers and Allied Workers in 1978. Today USDAW has around 360,000 members who work across a variety of industries including call centres, warehouses and supermarkets.

Union membership can benefit workers as it allows the union to negotiate on their behalf during grievances, to negotiate pay rises and intervene if mass redundancies are threatened. Originally, a trade union would only represent a single profession, but over time it became more practical to have larger unions representing multiple professions, as USDAW does. Over six million people in the UK are union members in 2024, but during the industrial era where people tended to stay in one profession for most of their working life, membership was much higher.