Twenty-five years on, the miners’ strike continues to divide opinion on the centre left. If you want to generate a rather arid and pointless argument between trade union officials of a certain age, all you need do is ask them to recall the events of 1984-85. Yet despite these passionate disagreements, there is little practical value in replaying the horrors of the battle of Orgreave, or the impact of picket line violence on public opinion, or whether the miners would have been victorious had they enjoyed the enthusiastic support of the TUC and Labour leaderships.
From a more analytical perspective, it is better perhaps to see the strike as both the last gasp of a particular kind of ‘Labourism’ and as an object lesson in the limits of syndicalism – the use of industrial action to achieve a political objective. Moreover, there can be no doubt that Arthur Scargill underestimated both Margaret Thatcher’s character and her government’s appetite for confrontation.
The consequence of this intense conflict was to delay the process of union reform by almost a decade. Just before the strike began, the TUC had begun to develop the ‘new realism’ strategy. In essence, this amounted to recognition that the existence of the Thatcher government was a fact, that the unions needed to rebuild their legitimacy with the public after the disaster of the winter of discontent and that a new approach to industrial relations was required. Unfortunately, the ‘new realism’ seemed a supreme irrelevance in the miners’ battle for survival. Modernisation would have to wait for another day.
Nevertheless, the ‘new realists’ were right in their diagnosis and, following his election as general secretary in 1993, John Monks pursued a very similar course at the TUC. It was foolish to expect the fulsome support of an atavistically anti-union Conservative government for this new departure, but Monks and his colleagues expected a fair hearing from John Smith and then from Tony Blair and New Labour. Unfortunately, the TUC’s return to the course of modernisation was met with only limited enthusiasm from the young leader. Monks was deeply committed to the European social model and it initially seemed that Blair felt the same way, as exemplified by his famous speech on ‘stakeholding’ delivered in Singapore in 1996. But such radical thinking was dropped rather quickly when it became clear that business in general, and the CBI in particular, were wholly opposed to what they saw as a straightforward return to corporatism.
Of course, Labour in government has done a good deal to help the trade unions – the national minimum wage, accession to the EU social chapter and the introduction of the statutory procedure for trade union recognition. Yet both the government and the unions have struggled to forge a common agenda beyond the 1997 manifesto commitments: on the unions’ side there has been a retreat to an otherworldly fundamentalism, ‘repeal all Thatcher’s anti-union laws’; and on the government’s side a resistance to further labour market regulation beyond the new family-friendly rights – witness, for example, the government’s opposition to almost any proposal from the European commission, including new measures to protect agency workers or promote information and consultation.
At the same time, the unions have struggled to rebuild their membership at a time of rapid employment growth. This is not a uniquely British phenomenon; unions are failing to prosper anywhere in the developed world outside the Nordic countries and disagreements about broad political direction between unions and social democratic parties are widespread. Moreover, union decline is ubiquitous under hostile public policy (Australia until the election of Kevin Rudd), neutral public policy (the UK) or supportive public policy (Germany). In other words, unions in most countries are struggling to come to terms with economic restructuring, the growth in the number of women in the workforce, rising skill levels (graduates are least likely to be trade union members) and the decline of traditional working-class communities.
The suggestion, therefore, is that unions must look to themselves rather than to governments for the source of growth and resurgence. There remains a commonsense understanding among employees that the contract of employment is characterised by an inequality of power and that collective action by workers is needed to rebalance the relationship. Yet the best evidence suggests that many workers see unions as irrelevant to that endeavour. Most workers are ‘never members’; they have never had any contact with the trade union movement at any point in their working lives. For this group, union culture can often seem disconnected from the realities of the world of work, derived from an earlier period of capitalism and sustained by myths of heroic defeats.
Some may see the recent events at the Lindsey oil refinery as an indication of union resurgence. But I would suggest that the dispute is an indication of union weakness rather than strength. The action appeared to be disorganised and the workers’ demands poorly formulated. Initially at least, the unions looked like bystanders, bemused by the ungovernability of their members. Perhaps we should see the strike as a wholly understandable cry of anguish from workers under pressure and the insurrectionary atmosphere on the picket lines – spontaneous protest outside formal union structures – looks more French than British, with the unions struggling to find an acceptable settlement and secure an orderly return to work. Whatever one makes of this dispute, it is unlikely to herald a new and constructive phase in British industrial relations.
The paradox is that, in formal terms at least and largely as a consequence of EU law, British workers have more extensive rights today to be collectively informed and consulted about workplace change than at any point in the past. ‘More rights but no way of enforcing them’ is perhaps the best characterisation of the present position. The government would be foolish to allow this situation to continue, not least because it brings the law into disrepute. A better approach would be to promote the positive benefits of information and consultation to both employers and employees, with substantial government funds being made available to offer training and support to (albeit non-union) workplace representatives. The choice of which training and what kind of support could be left to the workers themselves – unions would be free to compete for workers’ favour in a market that might also be populated by employment lawyers, citizens advice bureaux, other training providers and expert advisers (accountants, health and safety professionals, organisational psychologists). Success in this contest will require unions to demonstrate their relevance to groups of workers that, hitherto, have been beyond the reach of union organisation. It will offer a great opportunity to rebuild workplace institutions in Britain and crystallise the collectivist commitment that is present but latent in most workplaces today.
Let me be clear: I am committed to the view that Britain will be a fairer and more egalitarian society if trade unions are stronger. But, more than this, I am committed to the principle that collective voice in the workplace is a fundamental human right. Social democrats cannot tolerate a situation where workers are left without representation simply because unions have proved either unable to adapt to economic restructuring or have struggled to develop a compelling proposition for non-members. Put slightly differently, it does not matter how a collective workers’ voice is articulated as long as it is authentic, independent and corrects those imbalances of power that continue to exist in too many British workplaces. That, perhaps, is the real lesson of the miners’ strike.