Stitched up!
Stitched up!
John McIlroy, author of Trade Unions in Britain Today, Strike! and Industrials Tribunals looks at how the trade unions have responded to Labour's Rights at Work and minimum wage packages.
The publication of Fairness At Work and the recommendations of the Low Pay Commission finally confirm that New Labour will not reverse the substantial defeat unions suffered at the hands of the Tories. The changes involved would trim the edges of the Thatcherite inheritance. Its core will remain. Blair boasted the proposals were token surgery to what will remain "the most lightly regulated labour market of any leading economy". He soothed CBI worries by calling them "a settlement for this Parliament".
Union leaders have few objections. John Monks pronounced the package "a lot better than we expected". But on every disputed point the bosses have won hands down. The unions got precisely what Blair wanted them to get. Yet there are grounds for optimism: what is an important watershed in industrial relations holds the potential for a significant fightback.
The profound, calculated failure of those we have trusted with the custody of our unions is highlighted by the Low Pay Commission's recommendations on the minimum wage. The TUC's policy -- blurred by the General Council -- remains a minimum wage of "over £4:00 an hour". UNISON's policy is "half male median earnings" -- £4.60 an hour. Yet the three trade union members of the Commission (Bill Callaghan of the TUC, Rita Donaghy of UNISON and Bill Gates of the Knitwear Union) supported £3.60 an hour and £3.20 for youth (later reduced to £3!). They might have stood up for established policy and given a minority report. The recommendation, they proudly asserted, is "in line with the views of most businesses" -- exactly, that's the problem. The proposals, they purred "were agreed unanimously through social partnership ...they are simple, straightforward, prudent and supportive of a competitive economy".
That's what social partnership gets us: £3.60 an hour, £7,000 a year. How would Bill or Rita like to live on that? How can they support the breadline for other people, including many members of their own unions whose policy is to demand much more? How can they support a figure of 6.5% below the average rate set by the 24 wages councils before the Tories abolished them in 1993?
Their justifications are threadbare:
Rodney Bickerstaffe, leader of Rita's union bewailed: "£3.60, for an hour of anybody's life at the end of the 20th century, in one of the richest countries on earth!" He might have added -- "and under the self ascribed radical, reforming Government of a party financed by millions from my low paid members".
Talk is cheap. Why didn't Rodney do something, like ensuring Rita stuck with UNISON policy? A minority report would not have produced a level above £3.60. It could have produced a platform from which to launch a campaign for an adequate level. Isn't that what unions are for? Why should the low paid join unions when they ignore members' policies and support figures that Ken Cameron of the Fire Brigades Union described fairly and precisely as "a disgrace"?
If we take the CBI's rhetoric with a cellar of salt, then the employers also got everything they wanted on union recognition. Yet the TUC acceptance of a 30% threshold was wrong. Opinion polls report a majority in favour of a straightforward majority for those voting in recognition ballots.
If 31% of the electorate was sufficient to elect the Blair Government, and if Blair could hail as "a triumph" a 25% vote for a London Mayor, then a simple majority of those voting should suffice to secure recognition.
The bosses' demand that 40% of the workers involved must vote YES was simply acceded to -- despite Monks' last minute capitulation and acceptance of a 30% threshold. So if 55% vote YES but only 70% actually vote, there will be no recognition.
This is worse than it seems on paper. Anybody with any experience of recognition disputes knows how difficult it is to get workers to support a union or join it until it is recognised and they can see benefits and protection in place. So much for the "fast track" (50% membership equals automatic recognition) boasted as a concession by the TUC. In the past, when times were easier for unions, ACAS would recommend recognition when 33% supported the union.
The proposed procedure for moving to a ballot is complex and provides opportunities for employers to interfere. It will be supervised by the Central Arbitration Committee, who will determine the crucial "bargaining unit" -- ie. which workers are to vote. But the end result, if unions win, is unclear. The emphasis is on voluntary agreement and partnership. But with many anti-union employers this won't wash. What seems to be suggested is that employers who won't play ball will be saddled with legally binding arbitration -- something short of recognition. Finally the exemption of companies with fewer than 20 employees leaves some five million workers with no rights to recognition.
The rest of the proposals are largely as advertised. A right to be represented by a union official, even where the union is unrecognised, is useful, but no substitute for strong workplace organisation. The enhanced maternity and parental benefits are welcome -- but required of the Government by EU directives. John Smith's "rights from day one of employment" are finally consigned to oblivion.
Employees will have to work for twelve months before they are protected against dismissal -- better than the Tories' two years, worse than Old Labour's six months, the qualification period before 1979. The increase in compensation awards is good but the right to protection against dismissal is only extended to lawful industrial action -- those sacked for taking unofficial or solidarity action still stand outside the law. Even if the action is "lawful", under the Tory laws dismissal will not be automatically unfair -- the tribunal will review the rights and wrongs of the sackings and the strike.
Any change in the legislation on strikes is absent -- although there is the promise of a review of the Code of Practice on Industrial Ballots. There is a commitment to look at "zero hour contracts" and an official procedure for derecognition.
Overall I can only endorse the balanced verdict of the Financial Times editorial on the White Paper: "it does nothing to tamper with the key reforms of the Thatcher years". As Blair himself affirms: that's all for this century.
Bill Morris says these changes will turn the tide. They won't. Not in themselves, and not if we leave matters to Bill and his brothers. But the left in the labour movement can and must take advantage of the new climate and the new basis the proposals create to fight for union recognition, a proper minimum wage, the right to strike and take solidarity action and -- what will make them all work -- strong reconstructed union organisation.
Fundamentally this entails argument and organisation. We have to counteract the assertion of social partnership that underpins these proposals. Blair describes the White Paper as "part of the Government's programme to replace the notion of conflict between employers and employees with the promotion of partnership". The notion of conflict! As if millions of low paid exploited workers don't experience its pervasive reality every hour of the day.
We need to hammer home the case against partnership, the fact that we don't pay Monks or Edmonds or Morris -- or Blair -- to make our work more "flexible", intensive, harder, more insecure, lower paid. We've already got one boss! We pay them to prosecute our interest against employers whose interests conflict with our own. We pay them to protect us against "flexibility", not facilitate it.
This entails addressing the issue of the accountability of the Bill Callaghans, Rita Donaghys and their bosses, our servants. We should be heartened by the recent removal of Lew Adams from the leadership of ASLEF. Further, we have to organise to develop the demonstrations and campaigns for legal rights union leaders promise but never deliver.
Here the Reclaim Our Rights initiative, which is burgeoning into a united campaign for a wholesale overturning of labour law demands strong support. Such a campaign must be open and democratic with its roots inside the union machinery and able to mobilise it. It must not be a federation of left groups or union factions. This will marginalise it.
Essentially, it must be based on delegates from union branches and committees, trades councils, strike committees and Labour Party bodies. It must mobilise from below on a clear programme of union rights. The potential is there. We mustn't miss the boat this time.
Contact United Campaign to Repeal the Anti-Trade Union Laws, c/o John Hendy QC, PO Box 17556, London EC2Y 8PA, tel. 0171-638 7521..
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