Editorial
Fairness to whom?
Fairness, freedom, families, firms - somewhere along the line the government’s White Paper "Fairness at Work" seems to have got confused with an advertising slogan.
The aim of the White Paper has been clearly set out by Blair: "It seeks to draw a line under the issue of industrial relations law". Even after the changes we propose, Britain will still have the most tightly regulated labour market of any leading economy in the world."
Trade unionists will welcome some of the measures in the White Paper that will help change the balance of forces in the workplace. But there has been a massive retreat from the promises made before the General Election.
For the Liverpool Dockers, Magnet and Critchley workers the White Paper would have made little or no difference. For many millions of low paid, unorganised workers it offers no change whatsoever.
Activists must now demand that the trade union movement campaigns for TUC and Labour Party policy to be implemented in full - no more compromise – at the same time as arguing for complete repeal of the anti-union laws and their replacement with a new charter of union rights.
Proposals to outlaw blacklisting, stop discrimination against union members and allow sacked strikers to claim unfair dismissal are all to be welcomed, as is the reduction of the qualifying period for unfair dismissal cases at Industrial Tribunal to one year.
But this is a far cry from John Smith’s clear commitment of full protection from day one. Even with the removal of the maximum limit on awards for unfair dismissal, the refusal to make reinstatement mandatory leaves workers vulnerable.
As the White Paper spells out the laws on picketing, secondary action, ballots and notice before strikes, the obstacles to unofficial action and interference in trade union rules will remain.
Instead we are thrown a few crumbs – simplified strike balloting without the need to provide the company with a list of union members; improved consultation on redundancy and transfer of work; and representation rights for individual grievance and discipline hearings.
The cornerstone is the conditional right to trade union recognition. At a stroke this will exclude over 5 million workers in firms employing under twenty people.
These are of course the workers – mainly women, poorly paid and suffering the worse conditions – who most need the support of a legal framework. But even for the rest it will not be easy.
With the definition of recognition itself restricted, the hoops to go through will be time consuming – up to six months of bureaucratic wrangling – and restrictive, requiring a minimum of 40% of the workforce to endorse recognition. Even then the bosses have many get-outs.
The government also proposes a similar "right" to de-recognition, and says that an unsuccessful application would lead to a three-year waiting time for any further application.
All of this is a long way from the policies laid down by the TUC, and generally endorsed by Labour prior to the General Election. Yet at the special TUC conference, now to be held on June 24, John Monks and co. will no doubt be calling for critical endorsement of the government proposals. This is not good enough.
We must demand that the TUC abandon its hopeless search for a compromise and actually fight to see its policies implemented – for full legal protection from day one of employment, for the right to reinstatement of those sacked in lawful disputes, full rights to recognition without having to jump through hoops, the right to take secondary and solidarity action.
The call by the GMB’s John Edmonds for a demonstration to equal in size the Countryside Alliance march must be taken up – the rhetoric turned into reality.
The problem is that the government and the TUC leaders share the same underlying philosophy. They believe that it is possible to "replace the notion of conflict between employers and employees with the promotion of partnership".
For them "Fairness at Work" is a way of building harmony and thereby strengthening the competitiveness of "British Industry". With one eye over their shoulder watching how their members react, the TUC welcomes the chance to compromise with the CBI as an end in itself.
The TUCs rotten compromises have led to the proposals on the minimum wage being set so low - it is clear they are also prepared to compromise over trade union rights.
For us things are different. We know that "partnership" is a farce – a war is going on. We want to see legislation not as an end but as a beginning, to change the balance of forces and encourage workers to fight back.
While even the smallest steps are welcome because they indicate that the tide is turning after years of Tory rule, we recognise that compromise is doomed.
The right to organise is fundamental. We should be fighting to dismantle all the anti-union laws – replacing them with a series of positive rights – as a start to rebuilding an independent workers’ movement able to take on the bosses.