I began my career in the trade union movement in the late 1980s, when the Conservative governments of the time presented parliament with a new piece of restrictive anti-union legislation every 18 months. A huge amount of effort was expended by the Trades Union Congress in opposing these measures – all to no avail. The ‘elective dictatorship’ elements of the Westminster system guaranteed that the government could always carry the day.
There is an awful sense of déjà vu, therefore, about the current course of events. Despite the heroic campaign being fought by the TUC, its affiliates and Labour members of parliament, it is absolutely certain that the more egregious elements of the trade union bill will find their way onto the statute book. Life is going to get much tougher, not just for unions and their members, but for all workers until this legislation is repealed – and that will only happen when Labour has a majority in the House of Commons.
The real difference with the late 1980s, however, is that trade unions today are much weaker. Collective bargaining covers less than one third of the workforce and in the private sector barely one in six workers is a union member. There are now more people at work who have never been members of a trade union than are either current members or former members.
One in five workers is low paid, despite the establishment of the national minimum wage. Almost half the workforce has reported an incident of unfair treatment by their employer in the last 12 months. A quarter of the workforce is employed in troubled workplaces where unfair treatment is persistent rather than episodic. According to the authoritative Workplace Employment Relations Study, most people have little trust in senior managers and are dissatisfied with their involvement in decision-making.
None of these problems can be solved simply by extending individual employment rights. There needs to be countervailing power in the workplace or, more accurately, a balance of power between employers and employees. It is no accident that unionised workplaces have fewer low-paid workers, a better record on gender pay equity and equalities generally, stronger health and safety performance and lower labour turnover.
The case for workplace collectivism is compelling and is generally understood by at least two-thirds of people at work – workers know that the only way to influence their employer’s behaviour is to take concerted action with their colleagues. Yet despite this commonsense acceptance of the argument, barely a third of workers see trade unions as the best vehicle for pursuing collective action. The challenge for unions is as much cultural as it is organisational.
Many of the contributions to this series of articles have pointed out that unions are not simply fighting battles for justice. Getting on matters just as much as getting even. Trade unions give people access to learning opportunities, work with employers to improve the organisation of work and the design of jobs, enhance people’s control over their work, and ensure that an employer’s proposals are subjected to critical scrutiny before implementation. And yet, most ‘never members’ will associate unions with ‘struggles, strikes and strife’ or see them as organisations representing workers in an economy that is rapidly disappearing. Unions must do a great deal more to promote the features of their work that use the power of collective action to create wider opportunities for individuals.
Unions must make the case for collectivism to employers too, not least because unions are most effective when they enjoy employer support. There is strong evidence over the last three decades proving that unions can, in the right circumstances, boost organisational performance. What matters most is whether the union and the employer are either fighting in their trenches or working together to solve shared problems, even though they might have serious disagreements from time to time. It is possible for employers, workers and their unions to achieve mutual gains. A serious effort to rise to the United Kingdom’s productivity challenge must recognise that strong organisational performance depends on trust and trust requires that workers be treated as participants in the process of change rather than as a somewhat intractable factor of production. The UK’s productivity performance will continue to be disappointing unless determined action is taken to create powerful institutions guaranteeing workers genuine industrial citizenship. In short, the UK needs strong, responsible and forward-looking unions.
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David Coats is a visiting professor at the Centre for Sustainable Work and Employment Futures, University of Leicester. He was a TUC official from 1989-2004 and head of the economic and social affairs department 1999-2004