[A-List] UK state: trade union bureaucracy

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Let's stop whingeing

Brendan Barber
Friday December 20, 2002
The Guardian

Relations between unions and the government are at a low ebb. Both sides
must share part of the blame, but let's put our problems in perspective.
Imagine asking 1992's most optimistic union leader their wildest dreams for
a decade's time. I would guess their list would include full employment, a
steady growth in living standards, a big boost to public spending on public
services, a national minimum wage, legal rights to union recognition and
signing up to social Europe. Many wise old heads would have deemed such a
list nothing short of fanciful.

Yet while we may be short of achieving full employment in every part of the
country, the rest of that list has all been achieved. And not even the
starriest-eyed in 1992 would have predicted that we would be on the brink of
giving every employee in medium and large companies rights to be
collectively consulted about major business strategy, as we will when the
European directive is introduced into UK law. Nor that everyone at work
would have the right to be accompanied by a union officer when they have a
grievance or face a disciplinary charge.

So if everything is so good, why is it so bad? Unions have got into some bad
habits, which we must try and break. We are too ready to pocket our gains,
downplaying them in the hope that this will make it more likely that we will
win more. And more certainly needs to be done to protect people from
exploitation, discrimination, low pay, poverty, job insecurity and long
hours.

But ignoring how much we have achieved is now bad tactics. It is just as
likely to trigger a reaction that goes "however much unions win, the
government is never given political credit - so why do more?" Pretending
that we never win anything is also rotten marketing. Why should new members
be attracted to a movement that brands itself a failure? And sometimes the
louder people shout, the less others are prepared to listen.

But government is not blame-free either. Of course, Labour needed a new, and
much broader, coalition after its 1980s disasters. It rightly wanted a new
relationship with business, and needed to reach out to voters who had never
voted Labour. Over-identification with unions was seen as part of the
problem. But while what needed changing was clear, what should replace it is
not so obvious. I do not think for one moment that party leaders now think
that a Labour government can succeed without a union base as part of its
coalition. But whether they have a positive and clear view of the union role
is less clear.

Unions are too often seen as a problem of political management. Hence the
periodic calls for more people able to "speak union" to be appointed to
government. This is not the point. There is no great mystery about union
concerns, or some special union language to be learned or deals to be fixed.

What is needed is action on real workplace concerns. Private sector
involvement in public services would be less corrosive if the government
made clear, as in Scotland, that it will never be driven by contractors
cutting the conditions of often low-paid public service staff. We have been
promised action on this for some time, but progress has been glacial. The
two-tier workforce is already a reality, and threatens to grow.

An end to undercutting would be no threat to the New Labour project.
Protecting low-paid workers would not lose votes; indeed, it would help keep
them. Responsible business would welcome a level playing field.

Strong support for manufacturing, a renewed vision for fairness at work
centred on new information and consultation rights, and a drive to deliver
partnership in managing change in public services would all begin to ease
some of the tensions between us. A resolution of the fire dispute is badly
needed, too.

In turn, unions should perhaps be a little less focused on the government.
This has never been our only road to advance. We should be just as ambitious
with collective bargaining and working with employers. Indeed, there is a
limit to what the law can do in many areas of workplace concern. Yes, we
need to end the opt-out that allows only employees in the UK to work more
than 48 hours a week on average, but winning that will not banish stress,
overwork or incompetent management from the workplace.

Our influence at the top policy-making tables needs to be strengthened by
making trade unionism grow. Union membership has stopped falling, but we
have not yet overcome the structural trends that are against us outside the
public sector. We need to organise not just the exploited, but also to
develop new forms of unionism that reach out to employees in the growing
parts of the economy. The case for unions is as strong as ever.

Brendan Barber is general secretary-elect of the TUC