This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/15/the-guardian-view-on-trade-union-reform-partisan-politics-and-rotten-policy
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| The Guardian view on trade union reform: partisan politics and rotten policy | The Guardian view on trade union reform: partisan politics and rotten policy |
| (4 days later) | |
| The government has found another windmill to tilt at, another phantom enemy for its pantheon of society’s imaginary ills to sit alongside threats like NHS tourism and BBC bias. This time, it is a perennial favourite: trade unions and the right to strike. The timing is propitious. Less than a week after the inconvenience of the most extensive tube and train strike for 10 years, millions of commuters in London and the south-east are in unforgiving mood. Parents dread the next round of teaching strikes. The Labour leadership contest offers its customary field day for critics avid to exploit evidence of union influence. It puts the party in the unpopular position of a full-throated defence of trade unions that is not universally deserved. By imposing the requirement to ask every union member to opt in to paying the political levy every five years, it undermines the main source of Labour party funding. But it fails to tackle the big question of paying for politics – something on which all parties had previously sought consensus. | The government has found another windmill to tilt at, another phantom enemy for its pantheon of society’s imaginary ills to sit alongside threats like NHS tourism and BBC bias. This time, it is a perennial favourite: trade unions and the right to strike. The timing is propitious. Less than a week after the inconvenience of the most extensive tube and train strike for 10 years, millions of commuters in London and the south-east are in unforgiving mood. Parents dread the next round of teaching strikes. The Labour leadership contest offers its customary field day for critics avid to exploit evidence of union influence. It puts the party in the unpopular position of a full-throated defence of trade unions that is not universally deserved. By imposing the requirement to ask every union member to opt in to paying the political levy every five years, it undermines the main source of Labour party funding. But it fails to tackle the big question of paying for politics – something on which all parties had previously sought consensus. |
| Related: The Tories, trade unions and British democracy under threat | Letters | Related: The Tories, trade unions and British democracy under threat | Letters |
| There is Conservative political advantage to be had too. It will cheer the CBI, which was unimpressed at being instructed to raise pay rates by the chancellor in the budget last week. It will delight the party’s right as it braces for the EU referendum. It almost seems as if the business secretary Sajid Javid has been studying the playbook of the Republican presidential hopeful Scott Walker. As governor of Wisconsin, in 2011 he withdrew the collective bargaining rights of most of the state’s public sector workers, provoking a sit-in that prefigured the Occupy movement. He came back for more this year, making Wisconsin a “right to work” state, that is ending the mutuality of union membership by entitling all workers, regardless of whether they are due-paying union members, to share in what are the often extensive benefits of membership. The result, research suggests, is lower wages and benefits for all. But Mr Walker’s militant anti-trade unionism is his calling card for the presidency. His intention was to set one group of workers against the rest, in his own words, to divide and conquer. This is partisan politics, and it is lousy policy. | There is Conservative political advantage to be had too. It will cheer the CBI, which was unimpressed at being instructed to raise pay rates by the chancellor in the budget last week. It will delight the party’s right as it braces for the EU referendum. It almost seems as if the business secretary Sajid Javid has been studying the playbook of the Republican presidential hopeful Scott Walker. As governor of Wisconsin, in 2011 he withdrew the collective bargaining rights of most of the state’s public sector workers, provoking a sit-in that prefigured the Occupy movement. He came back for more this year, making Wisconsin a “right to work” state, that is ending the mutuality of union membership by entitling all workers, regardless of whether they are due-paying union members, to share in what are the often extensive benefits of membership. The result, research suggests, is lower wages and benefits for all. But Mr Walker’s militant anti-trade unionism is his calling card for the presidency. His intention was to set one group of workers against the rest, in his own words, to divide and conquer. This is partisan politics, and it is lousy policy. |
| The TUC’s general secretary, Frances O’Grady, is right to argue that the biggest threat of these proposals comes not from a government – with the support of 24.3% of the electorate – demanding new higher thresholds for strike action, nor even its refusal to allow unions to operate like a building society, or any other organisation that requires public consent, and use electronic balloting. It is the threat to allow agency workers to cover for striking employees that will really sabotage trade unions’ industrial muscle. Yet since 2000, days lost to strikes have rarely exceeded a million and are often below 250,000. The government is undermining 150 years of hard-won rights to tackle a fantasy problem. | The TUC’s general secretary, Frances O’Grady, is right to argue that the biggest threat of these proposals comes not from a government – with the support of 24.3% of the electorate – demanding new higher thresholds for strike action, nor even its refusal to allow unions to operate like a building society, or any other organisation that requires public consent, and use electronic balloting. It is the threat to allow agency workers to cover for striking employees that will really sabotage trade unions’ industrial muscle. Yet since 2000, days lost to strikes have rarely exceeded a million and are often below 250,000. The government is undermining 150 years of hard-won rights to tackle a fantasy problem. |
| Related: Attack on trade union rights by UK government follows Pinochet’s example | Letter | |
| But it is also arguable, as some will privately admit, that too many trade unionists have been too slow to abandon traditional methods, to reimagine trade unionism for a fragmented workforce in insecure jobs. There are still 6.5 million union members, but they are mainly in the dwindling space of the public sector: transport, teaching and local government, where more than half of the workers are union members, against only a sixth of those in the private sector. A typical trade unionist now is an older, professional woman. As George Osborne’s parliamentary aide Robert Halfon once pointed out, bashing the trade unions does not just demonise militancy but every trade unionist – doctors, nurses and teachers. Trade unions are about much more than strikes, they are part of civil society. No government should set out to weaken them. | But it is also arguable, as some will privately admit, that too many trade unionists have been too slow to abandon traditional methods, to reimagine trade unionism for a fragmented workforce in insecure jobs. There are still 6.5 million union members, but they are mainly in the dwindling space of the public sector: transport, teaching and local government, where more than half of the workers are union members, against only a sixth of those in the private sector. A typical trade unionist now is an older, professional woman. As George Osborne’s parliamentary aide Robert Halfon once pointed out, bashing the trade unions does not just demonise militancy but every trade unionist – doctors, nurses and teachers. Trade unions are about much more than strikes, they are part of civil society. No government should set out to weaken them. |