For those on the old left and right of British politics, pre-summer headlines heralding a return to trade union militancy were the subject of some rejoicing. Their cheers were a little premature. The shop-floor mood has changed a bit but this is a product not of ideological awakening; rather of pent-up wage frustration, following the understandable but inflated expectations generated by Labour s electoral victories.
I have a lot of sympathy for the demands of the public sector low-paid. Their relative wages, and those of women workers who suffer unequal pay, need to rise as part of the government s strategy to revitalise the public services. But first things first. Taxpayers priorities lie in investment in more and better services. The government cannot accede to public-sector wage pressure, whether or not this enjoys popular support.
I have always been an advocate of reforming the trade union link, not breaking it: unions are a vital part of the progressive coalition that New Labour represents. You cannot have social justice without fairness at work. But the future strength of the Labour-union link depends upon the unions acting on a shared understanding that they should not abuse their privileged place within Labour s constitution by using their votes to coerce the government or manipulate its policies. In addition to public sector wage pressure, there are two issues on which the government should remain firm: labour market regulation and public service reform.
On labour markets, since 1997 there has been a comprehensive extension of employment rights. But the most fundamental right of all is the ability to work. Any responsible government must be mindful of the effect of labour market regulation on business, especially on the job-generating capacity of small companies. It is right for the government to maintain a cautious stance on further reforms, in particular the extension of statutory rights to union recognition to companies with fewer than 21 employees.
In relation to the public sector, trade unionists still tend to equate belief in public services with public sector monopoly and uniformity of provision. This is partly associated with the case for quality and reliability and the desire to maintain working conditions for staff. But they have another interest too: monopoly services are easily governed by collective agreements that conveniently promote membership identity and loyalty. This cannot be the government s main preoccupation. The case for greater diversity and choice in public service provision is not that it opens the door to wholesale privatisation, which is not the government s intention, but that it will extend opportunity and improve equity for those for whom present structures offer a poor deal.
There is a wider issue here that goes to the heart of trade unionism s survival into the 21st century. The unions will do themselves no favours by adopting 1970s-style politics and effectively rooting themselves in the public sector. To have a future, they need to embrace a partnership for higher wages and productivity in the new economy, to negotiate unpredictable change, to focus on job re-training and re-skilling and to help build a secure pensions system. The value of social partnership is not confined to the old mass-production, industrial economy; it is important too for the growing numbers of people in the services sector, including small and medium-sized businesses and new entrepreneurs.
New Labour has not adequately espoused this new unionism. This has been a failing. But then, barely a single union general secretary has done much to help John Monks, visionary leader of the Trade Union Congress, to do so either. If they want to help the unions, ministers should not fall back on legislation or policies to make union lives easier but should, instead, challenge and help the unions to change faster. First, though, the unions should do more to get their rhetoric pointing in the right direction. The past few months have not provided much encouragement in that respect but we must hope that a constructive relationship between the government and the unions will achieve more in practice in the coming years.