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7th
October 2011
Autumn is set to see more
mass national strike action in the public sector. Will the
voices urging harsher restrictions on strikes have their way?
Millions of public sector
workers are being balloted over coordinated strike action
taking place in November, in what TUC general secretary Brendan
Barber has referred to as "the biggest trade union mobilisation
in a generation".
The move follows action
by the hundreds of thousands of public sector workers who
took to the streets on 30 June this year to protest about
cuts to their pensions, closing and disrupting schools, colleges,
courts, museums jobcentres and government departments.
Next month's round of
action is hardly likely to be the last, as public sector workers
continue to battle in the face of pay freezes and lower pensions
- a response to the coalition's austerity measures in the
wake of the global financial crisis.
National secretary of
the GMB union Brian Strutton warned: "We are talking
about throwing everything at it that we can, rolling into
next summer. We are not just looking to nudge this along.
We are assuming that this will be a huge set-piece conflict
running for a long time."
The likelihood of mass
industrial action in the public sector testifies to the fact
that public servants have reached the end of their tether.
As national secretary for the UNISON public services union
Heather Wakefield told Labour Research: "My members in
local government have had a two-year pay freeze on a basic
rate of £6.30 an hour, are facing huge attacks on conditions
and are being asked to pay more and work longer for a worse
pension. I would assert that under such circumstances anyone
should have a right to protest through strike action."
June's strikes, which
marked the swelling chorus of discontent among public sector
workers, are so far measured when compared to action over
government cuts taken elsewhere in Europe. Since 2009, a series
of protests, demonstrations and national strikes over government
austerity measures have erupted in Greece, Spain, Ireland,
France, Portugal, Italy, Romania and the Czech republic.
The UK's 30 June protests
have also occurred under what many consider to be some of
the toughest strike legislation in Europe. This is particularly
the case in relation to onerous procedural requirements on
giving notice of industrial action and holding a strike ballot.
Former Labour premier
Tony Blair, for example, wrote in March 1997 that British
labour law is "the most restrictive on trade unions in
the western world". Ahead of this year's TUC conference,
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said that the UK has
"the tightest regulations on strikes anywhere in the
advanced industrial world," and warned of wildcat strikes
should the law be tightened up.
Demands for even tougher
anti-strike laws
Yet despite this, voices
in the coalition and in business and right-wing think tanks
have been urging the government to toughen up existing strike
legislation, and to bring in other measures to undermine trade
unions.
The CBI employers' organisation
has echoed calls by the conservative Policy Exchange think
tank (formerly chaired by coalition education secretary Michael
Gove) in suggesting that a minimum of 40% of balloted union
members, as well as a majority of those voting, should be
required before action can go ahead. At present, only a simple
majority of those actually voting is needed.
Both have also called
for notice of strike action to be increased from seven to
14 days, and for employers to be able to use agency staff
to replace striking employees. London mayor Boris Johnson
has also piled in, arguing that strikes should only be lawful
if 50% of members have taken part in a ballot. Since his election
as mayor in 2008, Johnson has presided over a series of strikes
on London's underground transport system over a range of concerns
including pensions, pay and safety.
Will the government legislate?
In June, Lib Dem business
secretary Vince Cable told delegates to the conference of
the GMB general union that "the case for changing strike
law is not compelling". But, he added, to the sound of
heckling and slow-clapping: "Should the position change,
and should strikes impose serious damage to our economic and
social fabric, the pressure on us to act would ratchet up."
At this year's TUC congress,
the head of the TUC's equality and employment rights department
Sarah Veale, told a fringe meeting that the TUC feels sure
the government has prepared draft legislation to respond to
strikes which contains a number of core elements.
These are: changing the
threshold for industrial action; removing the current ban
on the use of agency workers to break strikes; and introducing
the requirement for a "minimum service provision"
where strikes occur in "essential services".
"Modernisation"
of industrial relations?
Roger Jeary, director
of research at Unite, the country's largest union, said those
seeking to make the hurdles to industrial action even higher
than they currently are, "are the same who are implementing
and supporting the vicious cuts to our public services and
welfare state - and they want to dismantle opposition to that
agenda".
Often the voices urging
"reform" of trade unions appear couched in the guise
of "modernising" the UK's industrial relations.
And, as Jeary indicates, these voices tend to be supportive
of coalition measures and much less so of trade unions' capacity
to organise strikes in defence of jobs and services.
For example, Keeping
the wheels turning: modernising the legal framework of industrial
relations, is the title of the September 2010 CBI report arguing
for tighter strike laws and other measures to limit union
and workers' rights. And a report the same month from Policy
Exchange, lobbying for much the same changes as the CBI, is
titled Modernising industrial relations.
But unions and the TUC
have given this notion short shrift. Bob Crow, leader of the
RMT transport union whose members on the London Underground
have taken strike action, said: "This is nothing less
than the bosses' organisations seizing on the economic crisis
to try and bulldoze through further attacks on workers' rights
in the name of 'modernisation.'" Sarah Veale said that
calls for modernisation, "are sometimes code for weakening
union rights and reducing statutory protection for workers".
She added: "Modernisation
should mean doing more to encourage employers to engage with
unions and introduce the sorts of changes in work practices
that give workers more flexibility, for example, to allow
parents to collect children from school. I fear that the recent
clamour is being orchestrated by business lobbyists who carefully
link 'modernisation' with de-regulation to make the latter
sound more palatable."
Electoral double standards
Unions and others have
been scornful of the suggested changes to balloting rules
and procedures, noting that if the same standards applied
to local and general elections, hardly any politicians would
be elected.
Labour MP John McDonnell
has pointed out that, had such principles applied to the last
general election, only 38 MPs (out of a total of 650) would
have been able to take their seats.
Boris Johnson would also
have failed his own suggested 50% threshold test had it applied
to the election for London mayor. That election saw a 45%
turnout with Johnson gaining just over 53% of the vote - and
then only after second preference votes were taken into account
under the version of the alternative vote system used for
London mayoral elections.
Veale said: "To
start restricting our limited rights further by introducing
thresholds on industrial action ballots would be absolutely
unacceptable to the TUC. It would, in effect, mean that abstentions
in ballots would count as votes against; nowhere else in statutory
balloting, other than union recognition, do thresholds such
as this apply." She pointed out that strike ballots are
independently supervised, by law, and all members affected
have the opportunity to vote for, against or to abstain. Veale
added that "the three options are different and distinct
and in a modern democracy must remain so".
The real democratic deficit
Wakefield said that very
few local government elections would meet the standard being
suggested. And she emphasised that democratic standards within
boardrooms and companies making vital decisions about workers'
livelihoods and working conditions generally fall far short
of anything the CBI or voices in the coalition are agitating
for.
"At present, only
a handful of my members within the beleaguered Local Government
Pension Scheme have any say at all over investment or policy
decisions which determine their income in retirement,"
she said.
"This really is
a huge democratic deficit which should be remedied far more
urgently than imposing a false limit on strike ballot turnouts."
Meanwhile, Veale said
that the possibility of banning strikes outright where an
essential public service is being provided "would be
a dangerous step in an illiberal direction".
Whether the coalition
and its business friends will get their wish and impose harsher
anti-strike laws is not yet clear. And in any case, they may
find they have a considerable battle on their hands.
As Unite general secretary
Len McCluskey put it in his speech to this year's TUC conference,
millions of people across the country "are not prepared
to put up with more class legislation designed to make it
harder for ordinary people to stand up for themselves, while
the feral ruling class gets away scot free with their crimes".
Exploiting agency workers
Unions have also been
angered at the CBI suggestion that firms be able to recruit
agency staff "to provide essential cover for striking
workers", seeing it as an attempt at strike breaking
and union busting.
TUC head of equality
and employment rights Sarah Veale said that such a principle
would also put agency workers in an invidious position. She
said that "no doubt many would not want to do it, though
at times of high unemployment more may feel that out of desperation
they would be willing to do it".
Leader of the RMT rail
union Bob Crow told Labour Research that employers would like
to be able to recruit scab armies to break strikes and pit
workers against one another.
"A casual pool of
agency staff who can be hired and fired at will on zero hours
contracts is the perfect scenario for exploitation and union
busting," he said.
Click here for recent
IER publications on:
'Fighting
Back: resisting 'union-busting' and 'strike-breaking' in the
BA dispute
Days
of Action: The legality of protest strikes against government
cuts
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