Since coming to office in 1997, the Labour government has done a great deal on workers’ rights. A long list of achievements can be cited, including the national minimum wage, trade union recognition legislation and now information and consultation procedures. Yet, to the evident dismay of the government, these achievements are met with just as long a list of trade union grievances. But these grievances are serious, an acknowledgement that much of Labour’s legislation has missed the point and that trade unionists are uneasy about the new role assigned to them by Whitehall.
Government engagement with trade union concerns needs to begin with an understanding of three core principles, the first of which is to respect trade union autonomy. Trade unions play a crucial part in representing the interests of working people in the workplace and in government at all levels.
With seven million members, they are the largest civil society organisations in the country, and it is appropriate that they should be empowered in a way that reflects these different functions. This requires a more mature acceptance by all political parties of the need for alternative sources of effective power.
A commitment to autonomy means above all the removal of the legal burdens under which trade unions labour. This includes both the burden of unnecessary internal regulation and the burden of prohibitions on what trade unions may do to represent their members.
It is all very well for government to use trade unions as instruments of partnership, or as instruments for up-skilling the workforce. But when the Partnership Fund has been wound up and the Union Learning Fund has run dry, it is on more traditional methods that trade unions will have to rely.
Yet trade unions are not only a source of countervailing power that should be nurtured and supported. They also play an important part in promoting equality between workers and in closing the gender pay gap. The decline in the level of collective bargaining coverage since 1980 is now widely accepted as one reason why women are still paid only about three-quarters that of men. Yet no one has had the courage to state the obvious: that the single most important step that could be taken to close the gender pay gap would be to restore collective bargaining coverage to 1980 levels.
It is true that the government has taken a number of steps to facilitate collective bargaining. But the trade union recognition legislation excludes about a quarter of the labour force at a time when at least a half of all British workers are not covered by a collective agreement. The only way by which this ailment will be overcome is by rebuilding sectoral level collective bargaining to replace the current focus on the enterprise. Yet what is the chance of a Labour government even broaching this with the business lobby? Unless it is broached, wage inequality will continue to be addressed by increasingly futile palliative gestures.
The third role for trade unions is to promote solidarity, a favourite rhetorical principle of Downing Street. But solidarity does not mean solidarity orchestrated by the government with the Prime Minister as its conductor. Solidarity also means an opportunity for civil society to help itself, in this case an opportunity for one group of workers to help others who may be in dispute with their employer. If workers are fired for going on strike, why should they not have the right recognised by international law even to call on the members of their own union for support?
So the real need here is for legal restraints to be removed to enable trade unions to act in defence of common interests. But it is not only showing solidarity to help British workers. There is also an international dimension, with globalisation allowing the unlimited freedom of multinational corporations to move capital and jobs wherever they like. British law prevents British trade unions from supporting international trade union action when the global corporations abuse the considerable power they now wield. Globalisation has washed over British labour law without leaving a mark.
The message is simple. The great wave of reforms introduced since 1997 is welcome but they do not meet either the immediate or long-term needs of trade unions or their members. Trade unions clearly have a role in improving productivity and efficiency, which is evidently the role assigned to them by government. But if we are serious about equality, we should not lose sight of the overriding need to promote trade union autonomy, support the regulatory role of collective bargaining, and acknowledge the importance of trade union solidarity in the new world order.