Update ‘We must win the fight for trade union freedom’ Len McCluskey speaking at the launch rally of the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom
T
he fight for trade union freedoms, our legal right to represent our members has gone on for too long. It is fight we must win urgently. It should be a matter of great shame that in 21st Century Britain ordinary working people can have such basic rights withheld from them. For more than three decades trade union freedoms have been cut away and curtailed. The legacy of the Thatcher government – its unrelenting attack on the lives of ordinary workers and their families – has lingered on into the 21st Century. Organised Labour, our most effective tool for working people to achieve social change and improvements now faces legal restrictions that apply to no other organisations in our society. At the same time as successive governments have shackled trade unions, they have been deregulating and setting-free corporations and the markets to wreak havoc.
We now know that this growing imbalance has been bad for society and bad for the economy, causing the greatest economic crash of all time. Successive governments have been determined to silence the voice of ordinary workers. Tragically, the Labour Party, the Party our forefathers and foremothers created to be the voice of organised labour, failed to ditch one single restriction on trade unions introduced by the Tories. Worse still Tony Blair boasted that his government would “leave British law the most restrictive on trade unions in the Western world”. The result of this shameful collusion between our political elites has been: an ever growing gap between rich and poor, a dramatic decline in the wealth that goes into the pockets of working people and capitalism brought to its knees by neo-liberalism left unchallenged and unchecked. The fall in collective bargaining agreements nationally and across
Campaign for Trade Union Freedom Centre for Labour and Social Studies Institute of Employment Rights
TUC FRINGE
Sunday, 8 September Branksome Suite, Bournemouth International Conference Centre 7pm to 9pm
Issue 2 SUMMER 2013
Free
sectors has been a key factor in increasing inequality. The International Labour Organisation says countries with strong support for collective bargaining have a significantly smaller wage gap between those at the top and those at the bottom. And yet the past three decades have been characterised by rising inequality and a low wage economy. Between 1975 and 2013 – the share of our national income used to pay the wages of ordinary people fell from 65% to 53%. The total of UK workers covered by collective bargaining is now 23%. Thirteen years of Labour standing still on trade union rights has led the way for the Tory led Coalition restart their attack on employment rights just where they left off and we are moving backwards once again. And the arrogance with which this government behaves can leave no one in any doubt about the magnitude of the attack we now face. Putting venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft, who heads Wonga.com, in charge of employment rights was like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. The trouble is there is not one shred of evidence supporting Tory ideas. We have already seen Redundancy Notice cut in half 90 days to 45 – the tip of the iceberg if the Coalition gets its way. They are pushing ahead with the discredited ‘shares for rights scheme’, which employment lawyers and employers say won’t work. Only the Coalition could tell you that you can create jobs by making employment more insecure and letting bosses sack at will. It is the politics of the madhouse. That is why I and Unite supports the Campaign For Trade Union Freedom. n
l Christine Blower general secretary, NUT l Bob Crow general secretary, RMT l Professor Keith Ewing president, IER l John Hendy QC vice president, CTUF l Len McCluskey general secretary, Unite the Union l Chair: Carolyn Jones director, IER Sponsored by Thompsons Solicitors Refreshments Provided
After the fringe celebrations will continue at the GFTU Fish and Chip supper and song night. Banner Theatre, First of May Band, Grace Petrie, Robb Johnson and the audience. Political song at its best, Devonshire Suite, Marriott Highcliff Hotel, 8 till late.
A Manifesto for Collective Bargaining by John Hendy QC A fundamental problem with the British economy is the dramatic drop in the value of wages. As well as painfully diminishing the standard of living for most people (while the rich enjoy ever increasing wealth) this has depressed demand causing the loss of jobs, loss of tax revenue and one of the worst performing economies in Europe. Britain is now as unequal as it was at the end of the nineteenth century with all the repulsive consequences: unequal life expectancies, lack of social mobility, unemployment, drugs, crime – and all the social costs that go with them. A vital way to re-establish the value of wages, decrease inequality, and stimulate job creation, is to reinstate sectoral collective bargaining – that is collective bargaining on an industry by industry basis. In this book we seek to
demonstrate that extensive collective bargaining coverage of this kind was government policy for 75 years (until Thatcher and successive neo-liberal governments) and was the technique adopted in this country, Europe and the US to end the depression of the 1930s. The current depression could be ended in the same way.
‘Britain is now as unequal as it was at the end of the 19th century’ Furthermore, as we try to explain, collective bargaining is the only way of giving workers an effective voice in the workplace, giving them sufficient power to prevent injustice at work and, most important, fulfilling the United Kingdom’s binding international legal obligations to promote collective bargaining. The failure to comply with its international legal obligations has made the UK a repeated international law breaker for the last 30 years, as the
Regular news updates, comments, articles and downloads on employment rights, trade union campaigning, fighting for workplace rights in the UK, Europe and globally appear on our regularly updated website.
international bodies have consistently found. The crushing of collective bargaining in Britain which saw coverage fall from 82% of workers in 1980 to 23% today (and falling) is the result of the toxic policies of neo-liberalism which must be reversed. Yet in Europe, as Keith Ewing and I summarise *, the Troika are now trying to impose the same lethal medicine in the name of austerity to undermine collective bargaining in European states though over 60% of European workers still enjoy the protection of collectively agreed terms and conditions, and, in the countries of western and northern Europe coverage averages about 80%. John Hendy QC is vice president of the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom n * Reconstruction after the crisis: a manifesto for collective bargaining by Keith Ewing and John Hendy is available for £10 from IER, 4th Floor, Jack Jones House, 1Islington, Liverpool, L3 8EG.
Affiliations can also paid on line at www.tradeunionfreedom.co.uk Follow the Campaign For Trade Union Freedom on Twitter @unionfreedom
UNISON wins a legal battle fo UNISON has won a four year battle for pay justice which could affect around 800 union members working for the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA). The union challenged the LFEPA’s decision not to honour the third year of an agreed pay deal that would have given fire and rescue staff a 2.5% pay rise in April 2009. The claim could be worth hundreds of thousand pounds as the 2.5% pay increase is payable from April 2009 onwards for four years. It will have a
cumulative or compounding effect on past and future increases. The LEFPA could have remedied this easily by paying the amount agreed between the union and employer. The employer’s intransigence saw some low paid workers earning as little as £13,627 per annum missing out on the agreed pay increase. The case Ms Anderson & ors and Phillips and ors v London Fire & Emergency Planning Authority went to the Court of Appeal in London on 13 March 2013. The unanimous decision in favour of the union states, “In my
judgment, it means that in that year the employees would receive an increase of 2.5% or NJC plus 1%, whichever was the greater. Looking at the matter objectively, no other meaning made or would have made industrial sense. No other meaning would have represented a three-year deal which the Unions would have contemplated and, objectively, that must have been obvious to the Employer”. Dave Prentis, general aecretary of UNISON, said: “When employers make an agreement with UNISON we expect them to stick to it. Trust is an integral
M
law at work
No ore zero hours contracts
by Carolyn Jones I was recently reminded of the saying, ‘Be careful what you wish for”‘. I’ve often argued for the redistribution of working time on the basis that some people were killing themselves with overwork while others were literally killing themselves because of a lack of work. If working hours were redistributed, the argument went, the intensification of work would be reduced and fewer workers would face burn out. More people would be employed and the state would pay less in benefits and collect
more through tax. And more. Space could be made within the labour market for the young to get on the jobs ladder and for the old to retire gradually and with dignity. If working hours were handled smarter, time could be invested in research and development and in training people in the new skills required to keep the economy turning. Looking at the labour market today we see that working time has indeed been redistributed but not in the progressive way envisaged. Witness the rapid rise of zero hour contracts. These “contracts” offer little in the way of dignity, economic security, job progression or training. People are being forced into jobs that are increasingly characterised by minimum rights and maximum insecurity. Willing workers wait to be told how many hours they will work week by week, even day by day. How can such workers rent
homes, start families, think about mortgages when they can’t even guarantee that they will earn enough to pay for food and essential bills week by week. The practice is barbaric. Yet it’s a practice that is infecting major sectors of our economy from care workers to university lecturers, from IT experts to nurses. The use of zero hour contracts is not a redistribution of working time. It’s not a life style choice offering flexibility and freedom. It’s an intense form of exploitation that needs to be challenged before the practice is “normalised” any further. In the US workers employed in fast food outlets that use these exploitative methods are taking to the streets and fighting back. In the UK, unions need to be at the front of a similar fightback. So, now I want to be more specific about what I wish for. I want to see jobs created not on the terms of an exploitative employer but by a government determined to deliver an economic strategy that leads to growth and security. I want workers to have a voice at work and unions to have a seat at a national negotiating table that sets wages and hours across sectors of the economy. I want to see a Labour Government committed to introducing a programme of economic reconstruction that has at its very heart a new framework for collective bargaining. But more importantly I’m prepared to stand up and fight to ensure my wish becomes a reality. Carolyn Jones is director of the Institute of Employment Rights n
or pay and justice part of any negotiations and I am pleased that we have been able to deliver pay justice to our members at the LFEPA. Times are tough for many public service workers without being denied a pay rise that they are entitled to. “It has taken a four year legal battle to win this case. Without the union to fight this case the employers would have got away with a gross injustice and members and their families would have lost out.” Tony Phillips, UNISON LFEPA branch secretary, said: “Fire and Rescue staff are delighted with the successful
outcome of this case. We hope that it will show unscrupulous employers that they cannot get away with reneging on written agreements with trade unions when they no longer suit them”. UNISON is warning that the judgment could be used as precedent to scotch attempts by employers to take an unduly technical approach when applying collective agreements. It is also an authority for collective agreements having enforceable rights for workers. The employer in this case tried to take a literal approach to the wording of the
industrial agreement to save its wages bill. The Court of Appeal said the employer’s argument ‘makes no real sense’. * The Employer argued that (a) it was no more than an agreement to agree; (b) it was “incomplete”; (c) it was uncertain; and (d) there was no intention to create legal relations. Although the provisions in relation to 2007 and 2008 had been apt for incorporation, the wording for 2009 was not of that quality. ** LFEPA staff received a 1% pay increase in 2012/13 n
victory
London Underground union rights attacked by Mick Carty Struck Out, a recently published report by the Tories in the London Assembly, proposes an assault on trade union rights across London Underground and potentially across the public sector in London. Whilst the report restates GLA Tory policy of requiring a turnout for any ballot of 50% + 1 of eligible voters it goes much further by setting out three proposals for changes in law which would have to be legislated for by Parliament and which all ban strike action. The first policy proposal is for Binding Arbitration in the style of New York’s Taylor Law which shows that this is not an issue for London Underground workers alone. New York’s Taylor Law was introduced following a number of subway strikes in the American city and prohibits all public employees in New York from striking. Instead a system of binding arbitration is used, which both sides must accept the judge’s decision. Workers who refuse to accept the arbitration decision will then be fined an additional days wage for each day of strike – and their democratically elected representatives can face imprisonment. The second policy proposal in the document is Binding Pendulum Arbitration in which strike action also becomes illegal but where the judge cannot seek to order a compromise but must accept the position of either the employer of the trade union in full. The Tories in the Assembly believe that this would incentive both the unions and
the employers to make “reasonable demands and find a reasonable compromise”, but also incentive workers “to choose to belong to a reasonable union” as opposed to “an extremist union that pushes for the greatest possible wage increase”. Given that the document only attributes such “extremist” characteristics to the National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers (RMT) it is clear that the attack is not only on the trade union rights and freedoms but also attacks the particular style of democratic and class orientated trade unionism that the members of RMT support. The final proposal is for a Complete Ban which would mean that a London Underground worker who went on strike would be sacked for breach of contract, in a similar fashion to the police force and Armed Forces. It is important to note that each of these proposals were supported by only 16% of those surveyed by the GLA Tories. Two alternatives are also highlighted including the introduction of driverless trains, and increasing the number of Londoners who work from home. The second idea is to reduce the “cost to London’s economy of a day of strike action”. The final recommendations are to legislate for the following: 1 Ban strike action on London Underground 2 Replace the right to strike with a right to binding pendulum arbitration 3 Require a minimum of 50% + 1 of all eligible trade union members to vote in
favour of binding pendulum arbitration for it to happen. GLA Tories claim that “this would bring together the best of the various options in order to remove the threat of strike action” and “stop the practice of a small minority dictating a confrontational approach to negotiation”. The International Labor Organisation has previously commented on binding pendulum arbitration when introduced by the Canadian government to attack postal workers. The Expert Committee of the ILO stated: “the Committee is bound to recall that it has always recognized the right to strike by workers and their organizations as a legitimate means of defending their economic and social interests, and that the right to strike may be restricted or prohibited: (1) in the public service only for public servants exercising authority in the name of the State; or (2) in essential services in the strict sense of the term, that is, services the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population” and “considered that whatever the case may be, and however unfortunate such consequences are, they do not justify a restriction of the fundamental rights of freedom of association, unless they become so serious as to endanger the life, safety or health of part or all of the population”. It is also clear that the introduction of such legislation in Britain would be a clear violation of the government’s obligations under international human rights law. n
The Campaign for Trade Union Freedom is sponsored by 25 national trade unions and ov er 200 branches, trades councils and individuals and financed solely by supporters fees from trade union bodies and individuals. By becoming a supporter you or your organisation show your agreement with the call to repeal the anti-trade union laws, and aid the Campaign’s fight. Please make cheques payable to Campaign, for Trade Union Freedom and send to the CTUF, 4th Floor, 1 Islington, Liverpool, L3 8EG Donations are gratefully received. Affiliation costs o National Unions - 100,000 pus o less than 100,000 o Regional Unions o Union Branches - 500 or more o Union Branches - less than 500 o Associations of TUCs o Trade Union Councils o Strike Committees, non-union organisations & individuals
£650 £150 £75 £75 £35 £35 £35 £15
Union / TUC: National/Region/Branch: Name (of Secretary): Address:
Email: We may contact you with information about the Campaign.