The labour aristocracy sells the jerseys again

[Keaney Michael <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Ministers admit problems after union talks

Michael White, political editor
Friday June 29, 2001
The Guardian

Tony Blair's senior ministers are to renew their efforts to sell the
government's partnership plans to frontline public sector staff in the
wake of their clash with union leaders over what Labour now admits was a
muddled message about the enhanced role of private
managers.

TUC leaders who met Tony Blair, John Prescott and Labour's new party
chairman, Charles Clarke, for dinner at No 10 on
Wednesday were yesterday trying to cool the temperature which threatens to
sour relations in the party conference season.

Labour and the TUC's conferences have been threatened with a "snowstorm" of
angry resolutions attacking what ministers insist is
not backdoor privatisation of health care, schools and other key services
marked down for modernisation by the Blairites.

Dave Prentis, new leader of the 1.25m-strong Unison, the main union
representing NHS ancillary staff, admitted yesterday that
none of the issues defining what he hoped would be a "marginal" role for
private companies had been resolved over dinner.

"I don't believe that this government will want to spend the next two years
in conflict with the trade unions about the role of the
private company when the clear agenda is that we have got to improve public
services," Mr Prentis warned.

But the more combative tone of John Edmonds, leader of the GMB union, and
his aides drew criticism from some other unions
present for provocative grandstanding over a row both sides are keen to
avoid. He is making it harder to achieve the reform of
school and hospital practices which unions admit their members want, they
suggest.

Mr Edmonds remains determined to keep up the pressure to extract "specific
guarantees" from Mr Blair over "details of private
involvement and other elements of the public sector performance agenda such
as pay, investment and conditions".

In Wednesday's dinner talks the union leaders adopted a conciliatory tone,
as did Mr Blair, who insisted that voters had endorsed
his extra-cash-plus-reform agenda on polling day, June 7. "He was in
excellent form in the way he presented it," said one union
source.

Mr Blair and Mr Prescott acknowledge that the public/private partnership
(PPP) issue has not been well explained, either to voters
or to union rank and file members. Some ministers believe that Mr Blair's
talk of "no ideological barriers" to using the private sector
has needlessly alarmed unions.

Mr Clarke, whose appointment to a party-funded office without prior
consulation has also caused some offence, conceded: "You
cannot deliver major change in the teeth of opposition."

But Neil Kinnock's ex-chief of staff, now in his first cabinet job as a
party-government fixer, also stressed Mr Blair's willingness to
be pragmatic in the search for "what works".

Full article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,514144,00.html

Michael Keaney
Mercuria Business School
Martinlaaksontie 36
01620 Vantaa
Finland

michael.keaney@xxxxxx