Over the last three months journalists have tested their keyboards to destruction with a series of increasingly lurid stories about trade unions. You might conclude that Britain has been hit by a tidal wave of industrial action, that the six most dangerous men in the country are conspiring to bury New Labour, that the industrial relations of the 1970s have been resurrected and that trade unions have abandoned their strategic commitment to social partnership in favour of a crude industrial militancy.
It may suit rightwing politicians and newspaper proprietors to resurrect these stereotypes but they tell us little about the direction of the trade union movement today. While it is certainly the case that a number of industrial disputes have come to a head simultaneously, it is also true that the number of days lost through industrial action in the UK remains amongst the lowest in the developed world. Nor is it right to believe that there has been some seismic shift in union strategy or tactics leading to a head-on collision with government. In 1978-79 there was a common theme that united trade unionists in both the public and private sectors opposition to the Labour government s incomes policy. No such unifying theme exists today and, while there may be a high degree of trade union irritation with some aspects of the government s agenda, it is premature to say that its relationship with the trade union movement is heading for an irretrievable breakdown.
The reality of the world of work makes for a much less fascinating story than alleged clashes of personality and ideology between union general secretaries and the Prime Minister. But securing a successful future for the trade union movement depends on the patient work of organisation and recruitment, forging effective relationships with employers and demonstrating our relevance to hitherto unorganised sections of the workforce. These are all more important in the medium term than the excitements of today s industrial disputes.
A swift glance at the transformation of the labour market since the late 1970s makes clear that the days of the Winter of Discontent are long gone and unlikely to return. In 1979 almost half of all employees were trade union members today it is less than a third. Then, more than four in every five workers had their conditions of employment determined by collective agreement again, now it is less than one in three. Trade union membership was well established in both public and private sectors, with a heavy concentration of members in shipbuilding, steel making, the car industry and coalmining. Today around sixty per cent of workers in the public sector are union members and fewer than one in five in the private sector claim membership. The structure of employment has changed significantly. There are more women in the labour market, more part-time workers, fewer workers in manufacturing, more workers in private services, fewer manual workers and more workers with professional qualifications. Trade union membership is weakest in those sectors of the economy that are growing fastest and in the private sector strongest in those parts of manufacturing that are still shedding jobs at an alarming rate.
Some commentators have concluded from all of this that trade unions are institutions that have outlived their usefulness, beached by the receding tide of history. This line of argument accepts that unions were needed to humanise the work process in the era of mass production but the age of Henry Ford, Frederick Winslow Taylor and scientific management is just so 20th century. We are now living through a time when technology is changing everything. People are being liberated from the shackles of employment and increasingly we are becoming free workers , teleworkers or portfolio workers ; independent, autonomous, flexible and, above all, happy. This goes hand in hand with a rhetoric that jobs for life have disappeared, corporate paternalism (for example, the provision of a final salary pension) is unaffordable and individuals must learn to love an insecure world that is spinning with opportunity and change. Put crudely, the argument runs that unions may have had their place in Charlie Chaplin s Modern Times but we are pretty irrelevant to Charlie Leadbeater s world of Living on Thin Air.
Much of this is what Americans used to call boosterism and what the more sophisticated may call Panglossian optimism all is for the best in the best of all possible labour markets. Unfortunately, it is a view rooted in myth rather than reality and the case for strong and effective trade unionism is as relevant today as it was a century ago. Let s start with some facts. We are not all becoming teleworkers. The office nine-to-five will continue to be the norm for the foreseeable future. Most of the increase in white-collar work at home is a result of work intensification rather than an increase in choice or flexibility people leave the office with a bag full of work and finish it on their home computers outside working hours. Nor is there any evidence that portfolio work is on the increase. Low pay is still the most frequent reason given for having more than one job.
And what about the end of a job for life ? Once again, the facts contradict the myth. In the 1970s, most people worked for the same employer for, on average, around nine years. Job tenures are slightly lower now, but not significantly so and certainly not to the extent to justify wilder predictions of the end of work .
Despite all the protestations from the personnel profession to the contrary, we also know that most people s experience of work has got worse, rather than better, over the last ten years. The recent Working In Britain survey shows that people are working harder now than they were in 1992. For many white-collar workers in particular, hours are longer and, despite greater freedom for the worker on the job, the degree of control and surveillance by management has increased. The most recent Workplace Employee Relations survey shows that most workers have few, if any, opportunities to influence the rapidly accelerating pace of workplace change. These findings are confirmed by the OECD s index of job insecurity that puts Britain in second place behind Korea. Work intensification, powerlessness and lack of influence over employers decisions are more characteristic of British workplaces today than flexibility and choice for employees.
The opportunities for unions here are self-evident, but it would be wrong to conclude that an aggressive and confrontational strategy is the right one. Even though workers may be pretty fed up, they are not looking for conflict at work. A recent TUC survey shows that, by a margin of three to one, workers favour an organisation whose primary goal is to work with management to improve the workplace over an organisation that defends workers against unfair treatment . And before someone launches an attack on sweetheart unions , it is also clear that workers are looking for a balance of power in the workplace. A strong union, well regarded by members, delivering in the workplace, respected and trusted by the employer, is the recipe employees favour.
And what of the bargaining agenda and changes in the law? What should union priorities be? It may seem like a hoary old theme, but the union role today is still to humanise the world of work. A focus on the problems of work intensification, increased working hours and lack of influence over the process of change will speak to the needs of employees across the economy. In the short term, this means an effective campaign to ensure the EU s Working Time Directive is fully implemented by the UK and that the directive on Information and Consultation becomes an effective instrument for workers voices in most UK workplaces. It also demands that the government accept there are real problems in today s labour market a successful partnership with the unions can only be established if government demonstrates a sympathetic understanding of their concerns. The critical task for the next two years is to address the problems left unresolved by the national minimum wage and the first term changes in employment law. Success will reward both unions and government and will lead to major improvements in the lives of all working people.