As predictable headlines follow Ed Miliband committing to speak at the TUC rally on March 26th, Rob Marchant takes a more detached look at how the relationships between Party, movement and workplace demographics interact.
As predictable headlines follow Ed Miliband committing to speak at the TUC rally on March 26th, Rob Marchant takes a more detached look at how the relationships between Party, movement and workplace demographics interact
Let’s not be daft – no-one sensible is saying that Labour is “in the pocket of the unions”; however, it is not a particularly wild claim that Labour’s two historic constituencies among the employed have been public sector workers – largely unionised – and the unionised private sector. New Labour’s genius for electoral success was, of course, its ability to fashion a broader church than Labour had ever before managed. “Post-New” Labour, however, is a different animal.
While Labour has been busy getting back those it lost to the left during those years, such as leftist Liberals, it seems not to have spent so much effort in re-establishing contact with those it lost to the right. One school of thought, of course, says that these people are negligible in number. But that seems unconvincing: the centre ground in politics is perennially important.
In any event, my contention is that much of Labour’s lost vote was taken from that other large demographic, private-sector workers from non-unionised workplaces – who nevertheless believed in public services; and that, although they are people who Labour really needs to keep, the party is disengaging from them in important ways.
Firstly, in Labour’s public utterances of late it has been quick to emphasise the limitations of the free market. Reasonable, but some will hear this as “we don’t like business any more”. When a party spends most of its 100-year history at loggerheads with business, it’s easy to see New Labour’s warmth towards it as a mere 10-year aberration. Unfair too, as Ed Miliband is hardly anti-business but, in Opposition, it’s often the noises that count, rather than the policies.
A small retrenchment can be perceived as a large one.
Next and surely counter-intuitively, during the period of New Labour government, unions ended up with more clout in the party than at the beginning. For example, union funding went from a low of 33% in 2002 to 82% in Q3 2010. Now, although some Tory conspiracy theorists might be surprised to learn that unions do not go around buying policy positions, it would also be hopelessly naïve to suggest that unions, with a generation of leaders seemingly more punchy than their predecessors, might not have more influence on the tone of Labour politics – and we must bear in mind that people outside the unionised sector may not relate to that tone.
Finally, Labour appears slightly obsessive on the issue of high pay, when the aspiration to “do well” is one of the things which attract people to the private sector. Whilst legitimate concerns exist about excessive pay distorting good management practice, the focus on high pay comes across as a populist response to public anger about the City – a very specific case – with a wink to Labour’s traditional supporters. But the message to private sector workers, most of whom don’t work in the City, is that their reasonable aspirations to wealth are disdained by Labour.
That said, does this all matter? Are non-unionised, private sector workers really the key to electoral success? Well, think about the following: the public sector has kept steady at just under 30% of total employment for most of the last three decades – but the proportion of unionised workers has dropped by roughly half since its peak in the late 70s. It is acknowledged by the TUC that the bulk of these losses have taken place in the private sector, deindustrialisation being one obvious cause.
So, a big part of the unionised private sector has gone: also the increasing “grey vote” as a proportion of the electorate lessens the impact of all working people at the ballot box. So, in the old days, Labour could practically win an election simply with the support of its two traditional demographics; in 2015, simply, it cannot. This is not to undervalue them as the core of the party’s support, but they’re simply not enough.
In short, little by little Labour seems to be disengaging from those private sector workers that it won over, although perhaps unwittingly. This disengagement matters, because Labour’s old constituency is no longer enough and it has picked off those who will support the party to the left already.
A couple of good opinion polls do not a summer make; Labour cannot just leave those to the right for David Cameron.
Rob Marchant is a management and communications consultant, blogger and eco-entrepreneur; he previously worked as a Labour party senior manager through the 2001 and 2005 general elections. Rob blogs at The Centre Left and his twitter handle is @Rob_Marchant.
54 Responses to “Labour must speak not only for organised labour”
Rob Marchant
@James, always a pleasure. Now, where to start? Firstly where is the “winning people over” which you talk about for those in the centre? We’re not doing any.
You are quite right that these points reflect my substantive beliefs. (Btw, I am not sure that being inside, or not, the mainstream of public opinion is a very effective debating technique in general. It’s like saying, I think this and, er, everyone agrees with me.) And in reality I think you are incorrect – although a good whinge about high pay makes everyone feel better, I would be very surprised indeed if the average Daily Mail reader thought high pay an important issue at the ballot box.
Where the high pay argument is depressing is the lumping in of everything together. As I point out in a comment above, I think the behavious of banks with regard to bonuses is not only wrong but bad management. You get a bonus if and only if a company makes money, end of story – anything else makes no economic sense. But high pay is a completely different issue. It’s knee-jerk politics of the worst kind, if I get paid X then I don’t like it if someone else gets paid twice X.
Finally, put simply, equality of outcome is a belief system which gives no incentive to anyone to up their game. I don’t believe in it. You call it a tired defence (without justification for doing so). I call it common sense. We haven’t reached the stage of equality of opportunity yet, that’s true. But that is no reason to suggest that I should aim for the same outcome for someone who works hard and someone who is lazy. Which is what equality of outcome suggests.
David Mullen
I think the main problem with the non unionised sector of the economy is the bullying tactics and policies pursued in the 90s such as derecognition which although it reduced under new labour it didn’t go away, it just manifested itself in a different way. Another problem is that non unionised workers are necessarily hostile to unions. In my experience they are either too tight to pay subs or they haven’t been approached and after a while they lose enthusiasm. This is not necessarily intended as a criticism of organisers themselves as quite often they have to make the best use of scarce resources.
News From Nowhere
@Rob
My point is that Labour should always be on the side of ordinary low and middle income people – be they public sector or private sector. Defending the rich’s right to get richer (naturally at the expense of everyone else) is not being on the side of these people.
Re your ‘class war’ comment, as Warren Buffet said, there is indeed class war being waged and his class – the super rich – are the ones waging and winning it. I find it a little disturbing that someone supposedly on the left thinks those who advocate a fairer society where everyone pays their fair share reeks of class war. Another lazy meaningless Daily Mail soundbite.
“We’re not going to solve the problems of this country by cutting the wages of a few rich people”. So you don’t think collecting the £100bn of UK tax currently avoided or evaded instead of cutting public services would solve many of the country’s problems?
Rob Marchant
@David Mullen: I agree that the issue is not with organisers, who generally do a decent job with limited resources, as you say. But what I believe to be missing is a compelling narrative which attracts private sector workers, especially in cases (not all, I grant you) where their working conditions are good or reasonable rather than poor. We need to get away from the idea, prevalent in the Labour Part, that all non-unionised labour is downtrodden and exploited.
Rob Marchant
@NFN you seem stuck on the idea of income demographics. The truth is that people voted Tory across income levels, and Labour being on the side of people on grounds of income – even in the case of low income – is useless if they do not believe in the same things we do. It is easy to go round a run-down council estate and find people who vote Tory despite all your natural intuition to the contrary.
Re tax evasion, you’re putting words in my mouth which I didn’t say. I say don’t cut wages, which is not the same thing. And if the 100bn was a miraculous silver bullet, it’d have been done by now under Labour, believe me.