Employers gear up for attack on workers’ rights
"You want me to what now?"
All through this year and last year, as strike after strike was brought down by employers’ opportunistic legal attacks – on any grounds they could possibly muster, whether those grounds had any material effect on the situation or not – I said that laws governing strike ballots were draconian and poorly constructed, failing to fulfil their stated aim of protecting the democratic rights of workers in trades unions.
Employers’ group, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, have underlined my point with a recent demand that the government tighten laws on strike ballots, and consider banning strikes altogether and introduce compulsory arbitration in “key” industries. There’s no pretence that tightening laws will respect the democratic rights of workers now, it’s simply naked aggression towards anyone who disagrees with the cuts and will act to stop them.
Naturally the CBI, the Confederation of British Industry, is not far behind. In a document with a title that would make Orwell worry, they’ve announced that the government should impose a 40% quorum for strike action on the balloted workforce. Making Britain the Place to Work also, ironically, proposes to shorten the statutory consultation period for firms making more than 100 people redundant from 90 days to 30 days.
Here, of course, there is the usual pretence at defending the interests of ordinary people – as John Cridland, CBI Deputy Director-General stated when launching the document, “Strikes cause misery. They prevent ordinary people going about their daily lives, whether it’s getting to work or getting the kids to school.” To which the obvious answer should be, guess what? Mass unemployment and encroachment into the terms and conditions of a workforce cause misery too.
The CBI document contains a lot of other worrying ideas as well. A key one is the attack on TUPE – the transfer of undertaking (protection of employment) regulations, which essentially protect workers’ terms and conditions if a company is transfered from one owner to another. The CBI want any new owner to be able to ‘harmonise’ a newly acquired business with a previous one, paying workers the same; i.e. less.
Contained in the document is also a demand for the American system of workforce voting for union recognition instead of the Central Arbitration Committee having the power to simply grant workplace recognition to a union, if that union has gained over 50% of the members of the workplace. This takes place in the context of businesses which simply refuse to negotiate with unions, even when their whole shop is unionised, provoking strikes simply to get recognition – which is not in the interest of workers, who lose pay.
Ballots introduce a plethora of questions. Would it only be held once? Could it be forced any time employers were having difficulty negotiating with a particular union? Would there be a particular threshold to trigger union recognition? In the US, these laws are used to stymie union recognition – even to the point of employers creating and promoting their own unions for workers to join, just to screw with the recognition of other unions.
The CBI document states:
“People at work should always be empowered to decide for themselves if they want to be represented by a union or take the opportunity to use other routes to communicate with their employer. The law should be amended so ballots should always be held to enable employees to demonstrate whether or not they support recognition of a trade union to speak on their behalf.”
People at work are always empowered to decide for themselves if they want to be represented by a union; they can join one or not. The problem here is not with the accurate representation of workers, it’s with the voluntary nature of union recognition. And I don’t see the CBI bemoaning the failure of businesses to accept the decision of their workers to be represented by unions.
This leads me to suspect that the CBI have other motives than empowering workers.
With the (half-) victory of a Conservative government, it would be surprising if employers’ groups weren’t gearing up to attack unions and further impose regulations on the one area of employment law where regulations seem tolerable to bosses; that area where the worker gets to give force to his opinion. We need to be aware that a victory in this field will make life all the harder later on, when unions are finally forced into action against the cuts.
We should also recognise that these are only opening salvoes from bosses’ organisations. As with Thatcher’s government, once they know they can get away with this, they will try and take away much more.
It will be interesting to see if the Coalition govt feels like it is politically strong enough to tighten up the anti-union laws. Rumours of bringing in anti-strike laws for workplaces like the fire service never really go away, but any move would create an almighty showdown with the FBU which would probably have more public support than a “bread-and-butter” strike.
The 40% quorum idea has long been in the offing. Every time there’s a strike bosses tell the media, “if you look at the turnout, actually more people DIDN’T vote to strike than people who did.” How about we apply this to governing parties and see how many of them would have had a mandate to rule in the last 50 years?
It’s so depressing – I hadn’t come across the CBI report but I had heard of the CIPD report. I agree completely with your analysis that this will just be the beginning. Working people need the political help of the Labour Party for this. I heard Andy Burnham speak yesterday and although I have reservations about some of what he said I was very pleased to see him castigate Milburn & Byers for seeing union resistance as a symbol of New Labour virility – he even described it as ‘unforgivable’. Regardless I’m up for a fight and am delighted to see that you are too!
Labour have bashed the employers
For 13 years. It’s their turn
Now. That’s politics.
Anyone who thinks that New Labour have bashed employers for thirteen years is either politically illiterate or a craven peon of the PR machine run by the CBI and company. New Labour, each time there was a strike, have employed the press facilities of the government to attack strikers. Laws passed by the Tories were bolstered by New Labour to restrict union rights. And New Labour have for years backed key demands of employers – e.g. opting out of the EU Working Time Directive, until it was no longer possible.
Dark Lochnagar.
Give me one example of where Labour have ‘bashed’ employers over the last 13 years?