If you are simultaneously bashing the unions and slashing welfare, you're also not in the best position to accuse others of conducting class war.
If you are simultaneously bashing the unions and slashing welfare, you’re not in the best position to accuse others of conducting class war
On the Andrew Marr show this morning David Cameron confirmed that under a majority Conservative government a turnout threshold would be introduced for strike action. The PM said:
“I think in these essential services, like the London Underground, the pain caused to people trying to get to work and trying to help their families by these strikes, which are often supported by a relatively small percentage…I think it’s hugely damaging and so I think the time has come for setting thresholds in strike ballots in essential services. It’s not something I can achieve in a coalition government. It’s something that will be in our manifesto.”
The idea of 50 per cent turnout threshold is something which has previously been championed by London Mayor Boris Johnson. It also fits with the theme of recent Tory attacks on Ed Miliband for being “in the pocket” of the trade unions.
Indeed, for someone who was once believed by many to be a ‘no-content’ Conservative (for a long time it was said that Cameron didn’t believe in anything), proposals to introduce thresholds for industrial action are profoundly ideological. It’s also ironic that, during a week when the Tories have accused Labour of “class war”, they are indulging in pointless union-bashing in order to cheer up their grassroots supporters.
And that’s really what this proposal is about: appeasing right-wing Tories who may be attracted to UKIP.
It’s certainly hard to see any practical reason why Britain urgently needs new strike turnout threshold rules. Far fewer days are lost to industrial action in Britain today than in the past. The number of working days lost to industrial action hit an all-time-low in 2012, with just 250,300 days lost. This compares to an average of 12.9m working days a year lost in the 1970s.
The odds are also already stacked against trade unions, with many ballots invalidated by bureaucratic legal rulings even after a successful ballot. Since 1980 there has been the following blitz of legislation to curb strikes:
- the 1980 Employment Act;
- the 1982 Employment Act;
- the 1984 Trade Union Act;
- the 1988 Employment Act;
- the 1989 Employment Act;
- the 1990 Employment Act;
- the 1993 Employment Act.
As much as the recent tube strikes were an inconvenience to London’s commuters, the biggest issues facing ordinary people in Britain today are stagnant pay and inequality between the ‘squeezed middle’ and the so-called ‘1 per cent’. Wages are still lagging behind inflation for those who don’t receive bonuses, and notwithstanding a very slight narrowing of the gap between the rich and the poor during the downturn, the share of total UK income going to the richest 1 per cent increased from 6 per cent in 1979 to 14 per cent today.
These developments are arguably attributable to the declining power of the trade unions, and for obvious reasons: as union membership has fallen, bosses have had a much stronger hand when it has come to squeezing the pay of their employees and awarding themselves eye-watering sums in remuneration. No, not all employers are like that; but nor are all trade unionists communist troublemakers intent on walking out at the first opportunity. In fact, I’ve never met a trade unionist who actually enjoys going on strike and losing a day or more in pay.
Even Ukippers should welcome more active trade unions if they really care about British workers being undercut by migrants from Eastern Europe. The best way to ensure that migrant workers are paid properly is, after all, to get them unionised so that, alongside their British counterparts, they can push their employer for better pay and working conditions.
Making it more difficult to strike will do nothing to tackle the real issues facing British families, and as with so many policies emanating from Downing Street these days, this is yet another sop to a faction of the Tory party that is increasingly charmed by Ukip. If you are simultaneously bashing the unions and slashing welfare, you’re also not in the best position to accuse others of conducting class war.
James Bloodworth is the editor of Left Foot Forward
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54 Responses to “The Tories want to ban strikes without 50% turnout, yet they accuse others of class war”
blarg1987
I think the main problem, is the lack of transparancy in buisness and goverment, if buisness says times are hard w have to let people go then the union goes can we see the books so we can work togeather to find savings, some companies throuhg up excuseses such as confidental information etc. Goverment has also been the same following the 30 year rule over the pit closures.
What people need is more information so that Unions can make a more informaed decision and people who are affected have a deeper understanding. When organisations refuse to be open, they can’t complain if people do distrust them.
Phil Kell
A CEO is nothing but a good idea without the people that work below him, to try and categorize people as makers or takers is ludicrous, everyone makes and takes what they can, you make your own way in the world. In a society where the financial elite wield an obscene amount of power the choice of a worker to withhold their labour value (His/her own commodity which no one else made for him/her) and strike is firstly never one taken lightly and secondly it is the only shred of power many working people have in terms of standing up for their rights as workers. While we’re on the subject, all of these ‘makers’ you refer to would these all be recent entrepreneur’s who have ‘made’ their fortune or the vast majority who inherited it? Just like a lot of your so called ‘takers’ are just people who would like to live with a little more dignity and not be subjected to meagre wages while company profits soar on the back of products which your ‘takers’ have physically ‘made’.
Henry Page
Why should there be a 50% voter participating threshold in strike ballots when none of the political elections have this imposed upon them? http://gobbledegooked.wordpress.com/2014/05/10/the-tories-simply-cannot-help-falling-over-themselves/
Henry Page
Yes unlike Lady Belgrano, who virtually shut the coal mining industry down single-handed, sold off our nationalised industries – we now reap the reward with greedy privatised energy companies stinging us – and started selling off council homes with disastrous consequences. In the 1970s for every £2 spent on housing benefits there was £18 spent on social housing. Now for every £1 spent on social housing, £19 is spent on Housing Benefit. Yeah, great policies from the daft as rook woman.
Henry Page
Will you live that long? I mean … there’s no guarantee how long it will take to get a yes vote … could be centuries away