Is now the time to reform the unions?
This article first appeared in The Times
newspaper on 17 September 2010
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YES
John Cridland, Deputy
director-general, CBI
Unions that work with employers for the good of the whole
organisation do have a role to play. But some unions are still too
ready to use strikes as a weapon, and this is where we need
reform.
Strikes cause the most disruption in monopoly businesses,
where people don’t have the choice of another service and can be
prevented from going about their daily lives, whether it’s getting
to work or taking the kids to school. Strikes harm other businesses
and undermine the economy.
Some recent disputes have raised questions about the role of
unions in the post-recession workplace and whether industrial law
is still appropriate. These questions will become even more acute
as the Government does the necessary job of cutting spending and
reducing the deficit.
Of course, it is entirely right that employees want a say,
particularly when they face big changes in the way they work and
are rewarded. But we need to recognise that for the vast majority
of workers in the private sector, having a say no longer means
turning to a union representative: only 15 per cent of the private
sector workforce are members of a union. Of course, that figure is
much higher in the public sector, where 57 per cent are
members.
This is not to say that business is anti-union. It just
means that other types of engagement have a place.
It is also important that where unions are present in a
workplace, they have the positive support of employees. We think
there are two areas where changes are required to ensure that this
is the case.
People at work should always be able to decide for
themselves if they want to be represented by a union or to use
other channels of communicating with their employer. A ballot
should always be held before workers become subject to collective
bargaining.
In a similar spirit, where strikes take place, they should
be the result of a clear, positive decision by the workforce. Too
often we see ballots that back action on the basis of tiny turnouts
of the affected employees.
Industrial action, which can have a huge impact on public
service users and customers, should never be the result of apathy
among mainstream union members.
We believe that the test for legitimate strike action should
reflect the statutory union recognition rules, requiring 40 per
cent of balloted members to support it as well as a simple majority
of those voting. This would help to ensure that it is the voice of
all union members that is heard, and that major disruption cannot
be triggered by a small but active group.
This would have stopped last week’s strike on the Tube, for
example, which disrupted the lives and work of millions of
Londoners. In that case, only 33 per cent of balloted members
supported the strike, and that cannot be right.
These proposals would not stop strikes altogether and nor
should they. They are simply designed to bring the law up to date
with the changing labour market.
NO
Tony Woodley, Joint general secretary,
Unite
Everything that working people have won in this country they
won the hard way. No employer was ever going to give paid holidays
or a minimum wage without being made to. Unions level the playing
field at work. Bashing the unions means empowering the already rich
and powerful. David Cameron is supposed to offer a new
Conservatism. It doesn’t look like that from the workers’
perspective.
In the six months since the coalition took office we’ve
seen: the Agricultural Wages Board — the body protecting rural
workers from poverty wages — axed; moves to dilute and delay
further basic protections for agency workers and lessen insecure
employment; proposals to break up our NHS, so ending bargaining
arrangements that have stopped private sector employers running a
race to the bottom in our hospitals; academy schools with their
“freedoms” that will rip up agreements in education; union-busters
preventing the lowly paid earning a living wage.
But it isn’t just the Government that is looking for ways to
take a knife to our rights. Employers are also getting more
ruthless. They’re hiring City lawyers on fat fees to keep us in
court — litigation rather than negotiation.
The laws they are exploiting, which have left the right to
strike hanging by a thread, are a disincentive for employers to
negotiate seriously.
Liberty, the civil liberties group, is joining us in raising
concerns about the state of labour law. Collective rights and
individual rights are not opposites; they are mutually
reinforcing.
British Airways is conducting a bullying campaign against
its frontline staff. More than 6,700 crew went on strike over their
pay and conditions. Of course, when you go on strike you expect to
lose your wages. But BA has gone further with punitive sanctions on
crew’s cheap flights, which many use to get to work. And nearly 70
have been suspended and 14 sacked. Employers such as BA underline
why workers need trade unions.
It is quite legitimate that millions more workers will look
to their unions to stand up for them. What is not legitimate is for
the CBI and right-wing think-tanks to clamour for more stringent
laws against unions.
Our laws are already the toughest in Europe. We have a
library load of red tape to cut before we can ballot our members on
anything, not just strike action. We are scrutinised by a
regulator. The law exerts control over every aspect of our
conduct.
To say to us now “either accept the savage spending cuts
passively or we will tighten the screws” smacks of nothing except
class vindictiveness.
British people value fair play. Unions speak of a society
that holds fairness, solidarity and mutual assistance as civic
virtues, not as a menace to civilisation. As the people who keep
this country going — the true wealth creators — brace for the
hardest of hits to their quality of life in generations, Messrs
Cameron and Clegg would be wise to set aside their Thatcherite
armour and recognise the legitimacy of unions’ role in our
country.
