And it’s back to life, back to reality with politics starting from today and Jeremy Corbyn’s first job is to oppose the Conservative Party’s full frontal attack on our trade unions. The Trade Union bill is so utterly extreme that even some Tories like David Davis MP oppose parts of it, describing some parts of it as “like something out of Franco’s dictatorship in Spain” and Tory-collaborators like Vince Cable oppose all of it. Some of the dramatic changes are set out below:
A minimum 50% turnout in strike ballots – with public sector strikes also requiring the backing of at least 40% of those eligible to vote.
Double the amount of notice unions have to give before a strike can be held – from seven to 14 days
Allow employers to use agency workers to replace striking staff
Introduce fines of up to £20,000 on unions if pickets do not wear an official armband
End the so-called check-off system for collecting union subs direct from a salary
Along with proposals to scrap the Human Rights Act, it is crystal clear that we now have a government so far to the political right that soon the Thatcher years will be kindly regarded as the good old libertarian days. Well, not quite, but you get the general drift.
We also need to be clear that trade unions are, in principle, A Good Thing. Even the Tory minister for employment, Nick Boles, today said as much, before going on to describe these draconian proposals as “modest”. The changes are anything but modest.
In which other sphere of life are democratic decisions only acceptable if 50% of the electorate take part? Public sector strikes would require 40% of the electorate to vote for strike action. That is an astonishingly high bar to reach. Yes, we want the maximum possible turn out in votes, but you can’t make people vote. The Bristol mayoral position was created following a turn out of 24% of voters, 53% of whom voted for it. The mayor himself won on a turn out of 28% with a total vote 37,353 – hardly a stunning mandate in numerical terms, but that’s democracy for you. Many complaints about Ferguson’s performance as mayor have come from those who couldn’t be bothered to vote.
I can’t help wondering if the actions of my old union, PCS, has contributed to the government’s attacks. In 2012, the union called a strike among immigration staff just before the Olympics on a 12% turn out. I am not sure that Mark Serwotka’s shambolic union has ever got near a 50% turn out for anything. Turn outs for elections regularly don’t even achieve double figures so you can take it as read that civil servants will never go on strike again, no matter what the Tories throw at them. I’m not sure how this equates with a free country.
Unions have suggested on-line voting which could increase turn outs but ministers don’t want to go down that road because it probably would and so make their crackdown meaningless.
There is an argument to be said that unions have become irrelevant in much of the country. They are only strong in certain areas, such as a few parts of the public sector and they are increasingly non existent in the private sector. This has come about because of the strengthening of anti trade union laws and because of the failure of unions to adapt to the modern era. I accept that the first part of the argument has been more significant than the latter.
When people attack the very principle of unions, I shudder. They exist to promote and protect the interests of ordinary working people. Yes, they are not perfect, especially when, like with PCS, they become an arm of a far left political party, but they are essential in a low pay, zero hours economy. Low pay, zero hours and less rights for workers are what the Tories want and that is the real reason they are attacking workers rights by castrating their unions.