UK

Labour and the unions: reasons to be (cautiously) cheerful

By Jeff Slee

AUGUST 11, 2024

The first month of this Labour government has gone better than trades unions had expected.

Unions have welcomed the government’s commitment to introduce an Employment Rights Bill, to repeal the Tories’ Strikes (Minimum Services) Act, and Angela Rayner’s and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds’ instruction to government departments not to use that law.  

Unions have also welcomed the government’s agreement of a 22% pay rise for junior doctors to settle their long-running dispute, which the British Medical Association is recommending its members to accept in a referendum; the 5.5% rise for teachers and NHS staff as recommended by their pay review bodies; the steps towards bringing the core of the national rail network back together in public ownership;  and the talks with the train drivers’ union ASLEF to settle the ongoing dispute over train drivers’ pay and conditions.

The Employment Rights Bill has not yet been published, but the King’s Speech and other government announcements indicate that it will put into law Labour’s ‘New Deal for Working People’, which  was agreed between the Labour leadership and affiliated unions in May. The final version of the New Deal for Working People promised less than earlier versions and includes many points which will be open to consultation with bosses – which is why Unite refused to endorse it in May. However, Unite did welcome the King’s Speech, saying it was “packed full of measures which will begin transforming the UK for the better [and] shows why Britain needs a Labour government.”

There are many welcome definite commitments in the New Deal. Unions will be keen to see these in the Bill when it is published, and stuck to by the Front Bench in Parliament. Among commitments which will remove restrictions on unions are the repeal of the Trade Union Act 2016, which  required unions to pass thresholds of 50% turnout and 40% voting Yes in industrial action ballots; the right to use electronic (online) balloting instead of postal balloting in industrial action ballots and union elections; making it easier for unions to get Recognition (the right to collective bargaining over pay and conditions); and giving unions the right of access to workplaces to recruit and organise.

Commitments that will improve the lot of workers at work include making the minimum wage take into account the cost of living and covering workers aged 18 to 20; giving workers the right of protection against unfair dismissal from Day One instead of the current two years; parental leave and sick pay rights from Day One in work;  ending “fire and rehire”; and banning “exploitative” zero-hour contracts, although we wait to see what this means in practice. 

Unions will keep a close eye on what is in the Bill, and argue against giving way to the bosses’ lobbying on those points up for consultation. But they should also be preparing to use the new rights they will – hopefully – get when this becomes law.

One of the main reasons the union movement has been unable to grow over the last forty years is that bosses often stop them getting into workplaces to speak to workers directly, and use dodgy tactics to stop unions getting Recognition even when those unions have gained enough support to have a ballot for Recognition. When the GMB recently narrowly lost a recognition ballot at Amazon Coventry (by 49.5% to 50.5%), they had to do all their campaigning outside the factory gates because Amazon would not allow them on site.

Furthermore, unions have on many occasions suspected bosses of fiddling employment lists before Recognition ballots. The new law should change this. Unions should be preparing campaigns to get into unorganised workplaces and companies, and getting together so they work in co-operation – not competition – on this.

There is a lot for unions to do. Workers’ real pay is no higher now than it was in 2007, according to Office for National Statistics figures. Yet companies are making big profits.

The economy now should be a good place for unions to grow in and to win real improvements for workers over pay and conditions. There is  a general shortage of workers which by the law of supply and demand should favour the working class.  Unions should be able grow their membership, which has not significantly risen for many years, and union density (the percentage of employees who are in a union) which continues to fall. In autumn 2022 union density was just 22.3%, down from 23.1% a year before, according to the government’s Labour Force Survey  (Labour Research, July 2023). Union density is much higher in the public sector (48.6% in 2022) than the private sector (12.0%).

What is the outlook for unions under the Labour government? If it carries out its promises of the last month – especially over the Employment Rights Bill – then the goodwill that generates will mean most unions won’t want to be disruptive towards the government. Public sector workers will, rightly, want their real pay to increase after years of austerity and real pay cuts – not only for the sakes of themselves and their families, but also to stop the loss of workers to better-paid private sector jobs and the pressure on the public sector this produces.

While pay rises for health workers and teachers are welcome, other public sector workers will also be looking for real pay rises this year. And those in the public sector  are acutely aware that the services they provide were getting worse under the Tory government.

My experience of canvassing during the election was that the strongest support for Labour – indeed the only enthusiasm for Labour – was from workers in health and education who hope this government will tackle the problems those sectors have. If the government does not give the public sector the funds needed to do this, then I expect that hope to turn to bitterness – which will put pressure on the public sector unions to challenge the government.

The government should use its budget on October 30th to raise taxes on the rich, and use these to invest in the public sector. Public sector workers won’t want to wait for Labour’s promised growth – even if this happens – to generate the increased funding they need

We will see which side the government takes if a stronger and more confident union movement fights for better pay, conditions, jobs and workers’ rights in the private sector, and bosses respond with complaints and threats of closing their businesses or moving them abroad.

Jeff Slee is a retired rail worker and former RMT National Executive Committee member.

Image: https://www.ier.org.uk/news/trade-union-membership-dips-in-the-uk/ Creator: Nick Efford Copyright: © 2011 Nick Efford, Licence: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported CC BY-SA 3.0