The past year has seen a return of large-scale walkouts in Britain. After decades of low levels of industrial action, leaders of the more established unions have been calling strike after strike. Alongside this, there have been glimpses of new workplace organising at employers such as Amazon.

But it’s just as important to pay attention to where we haven’t yet seen strikes.

Overall union membership remains at a historic low. Most workers are not members of a union and there is an increasing gulf between the existing labour movement and the rest of the workforce.

There is huge potential for more worker organising across the British economy. Workers are facing a cost-of-living crisis and strikes are back in the headlines – often with significant public support.

Take care work, where there is no shortage of issues to organise around. Care, like many other forms of “essential work”, was briefly championed during the Covid-19 pandemic – but care workers have not seen improvements to their pay and conditions.

Indeed, for many, things have got worse with the cost-of-living crisis – even as private care providers rake in huge profits. “I am stressed,” is how one home care worker in northern England put it to us during our work as organisers and researchers. “I pay for fuel for about £250 per month. My boss doesn’t pay me mileage. Sometimes I work less hours and at times I don’t get shifts. Although the government lifted restrictions on taking up a second job, my rota doesn’t allow me time.”

Despite growing demand for care, the government has done little to improve conditions. There are 1.6m adult social care workers in Britain, more than there are workers in the NHS, so collectively these workers could have a powerful voice. Across developed countries, care jobs now employ around a quarter of the total workforce. But like in many other parts of the economy, union membership is low.

There are many challenges facing unorganised workers, meaning turning that potential into reality faces a number of important hurdles. First, workplaces without unions are often keen to keep them that way. This means that new organising starts in a hostile environment.

Without existing unions, workers are much more at risk from retaliation by employers. While there are employment law protections, these require that workers are both aware of their rights and able to enforce them. In many forms of work, dismissals can be hard to fight – particularly in the first two years of employment. The Employment Tribunal system is not fit for purpose, never mind the UK’s labour market enforcement bodies.

Second, the reality of organising from scratch is much more challenging. Throughout the cost-of-living crisis, we’ve both spent lots of time talking to workers who want to start organising – either in the general members branch of the IWGB (Independent Workers of Great Britain) union, or with Organise Now!, a new peer-to-peer network that supports people getting organised at work by introducing them to coaches from across the trade union movement.

A common theme from workers is that they do not know where to start, let alone what a path to winning something at work would look like. Yet workers continue to try to take those first steps. For example, migrant care workers have been forming new networks, supported by Organise Now! They have been putting on organising and “know your rights” training sessions, as well as hosting socials for workers to meet and share experiences.

This is particularly important for migrant workers to build connections and find support. The British government has introduced an international recruitment fund for adult social care in 2023, to encourage more workers into the sector. This fund enables companies to recruit from abroad, encouraging carers to come here on care work visas. But as another care worker told us: “These rigid visas force carers to work for abusive employers. Many of us are trying to change employers, but it’s not easy because of the visa we are on.”

The complications of the visa system mean that many workers currently lack the confidence to challenge their bosses. As an organiser we met through Organise Now! told us: “We know that the system is exploitative, but many carers don’t feel that as immigrants they can change anything. They feel that trade unions don’t understand their plight. For this reason, they have joined trade unions as a way of buying a service [unions market themselves using deals on services such as insurance], not as active participants in the movement.”

This is why they started a network of migrant care workers. They encourage workers to join unions as active members, provide training, and social events across the country. Despite the barriers they are facing, these first steps are forming the connections needed to organise effectively. The backdrop of industrial action has only made these arguments easier.

In sectors like care – as well as hospitality, retail, and many others – there is clearly potential to organise. In our recent book, Troublemaking, we’ve argued that we need to go back to rank-and-file organising, whether in workplaces that have an existing union or in places where they need to be started from scratch.

We urgently need to rebuild the union movement, not only so it can push back against the cost-of-living crisis – but to fight for something better. Spreading the militancy of the new strike wave across sectors is about bridging the gap between the established labour movement and wider groups of workers.

Care work shows us just how vital this fight is. Improving the conditions for care workers also improves the delivery of care. Building the confidence and capacity of workers in that sector to organise for better conditions is the first step, but it also raises important questions about how we want care to be organised for everyone.