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10
March 2008
The second session of
the Grand Committee of the House of Lords was on 25 February
however, their Lordships didn’t finish the business so
there’ll be another on 13 March. That will be when they
debate the question of the extent of the freedom for trade
unions decide their own affairs, in accordance with the fundamental
human right of association and the decision in ASLEF v UK.
The trouble is, their Lordships don’t see it that way.
Clause 17 in the Bill is limited to changing the right of
unions to expel a member in relation to membership of a political
party. This is far too narrow.
Lord (Bill) Morris says
the Clause is “barking”, but not because it should
be wider – because he doesn’t think unions should
be able to expel people even on that narrow ground. The Liberal
Lord Lester wants an amendment to say that unions can expel
members on grounds of membership of a political party, but
only if they guarantee there will be no financial consequence
to the member. That would make things even worse than they
are now. A union might tell an employer that they are expelling
a fascist member of the BNP and the employer might sack the
member. The fascist might not have a good case against the
employer for unfair dismissal – BNP members are sacked
from the police these days – but the fascist could claim
all his or her loss of wages from the union!
There were also discussions
about agency workers. There are two issues. One is that of
“equal treatment”, which is also covered by Andrew
Miller’s Temporary and Agency Workers’ Bill in the
Commons. See our separate note about that.
The other is highlighted
by the Court of Appeal decision on 5 February – James
v Greenwich Council, where Mrs James, a former employer of
the Council ended up being sent by an agency to work at the
Council alongside others who were employees. After years of
work, the Council told the agency they did not want her. She
tried to take an unfair dismissal case, but she could not.
She wasn’t an employee of the agency or the Council.
Lord “Digby”
Jones – ex CBI chief – for the Labour Government
responded that: “ One reason we have the most successful
economy in the whole of Europe is that we have the most flexible
labour market”. For “the most flexible labour market”
read “workers having the worst individual and worst union
rights”. He went on to say again that “Whatever
certain people with vested interests might tell you, there
is a connection between low levels of unemployment and high
levels of flexibility”. This is utter deceit that he
peddles in the interests of business. The fact is that the
World Bank’s report "Unions and Collective Bargaining
- Economic Effects in a Global Environment" found that
coordinated collective bargaining tended to be associated
with lower and less persistent unemployment, lower earnings
inequality, and fewer and shorter strikes. It was an in depth
report that reviewed more than a thousand studies on the effects
of unions and collective bargaining. It’s also not true
that the minimum wage cost jobs – as the CBI had predicted.
The right for Mrs James and all agency workers to take an
unfair dismissal cases wouldn’t harm the economy either.
It might cost businesses behaving badly cash though and that’s
who Digby Jones is protecting.
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