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In 2017, European-level unions and business associations agreed a framework for national and workplace level employers and union representatives to take collaborative action to design workforce responses to demographic ageing. This article discusses how unions are responding to pressures to extend working life in the UK. Drawing on industrial relations and social movement literature, it argues that unions pursue the twin strategies of working in partnership with like-minded employers to reorient workplaces towards an age friendly model while organizing and campaigning with members to secure conditions consistent with active and healthy ageing. Resisting an erosion of pension and retirement rights and extending employment protection are examples of this approach, but numerous lower profile initiatives by workplace representatives are also reflective of their having an age friendly agenda. Using qualitative data from focus group discussions with union representatives in two sectors, the article shows that union responses are rooted in both of the dominant models of British unionism—the organizing and partnership models—and argues that literature on social movements helps to understand how union representatives reconcile the competing pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HR managers have known for many years about the demographic time bomb, and more recently have been urged to take age positive1 approaches to the management of their organisations. However, conversations and seminars with many of those who devise and steer human resource management policies in organisations, suggest that understanding of demographic change is sometimes limited and coping strategies often absent or inchoate. This paper will briefly explore the demographic context and comment briefly on the main policy responses in relation to workforce issues. It will then consider the sorts of measures that might be needed to make work compatible with a significantly older working population. Taken together, these strands will hopefully weave a picture that meets our purpose of forward looking conjecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]