Once, political and union knowledge was passed on within working class families. That is no longer the case. As a result, there is an uphill battle for unions to prove their effectiveness in the workplace. It is made even more difficult bby the fact that many of the gains made by unions have become workplace law administered by the Labour department. And then there is the free loading by non-union members, with gains made by union members  automatically being passed on to all staff.

But as well, there is the fragmentation of community, especially in urban areas.  Recently I proposed to a labour history group I belong to, that the new history curriculum in schools, which emphasises local content, presented an opportunity for unionists and labour historians to provide local working class stories to schools in an area. There was something of a stunned silence. How do you make contact with schools? How would you write up the material? Who’s got the time? Doesn’t take long I reassured them. But the making contact proved insurmountable. Yet community unionism is a buzz word?

Generally, the urban left is divorced from the working class communities who have often been pushed into the outer suburbs in order to leave the urban centres to professionals. The gap becomes even wider as the urban left becomes engrossed in identity issues. And of course the academy and the community are rare bedfellows.

The fragmentation therefore continues.