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”
OhNoesItsMe
He’s…you? Now that’s a nasty accusation!
OhNoesItsMe
So basic rights are “theft”, and workers wanting sufficient cash to live on is wrong.
Keep blaming Labour for everything – as you call for wiping out everyone who hasn’t got their cash offshore like you. It’s not sufficient for you to screw the public, you want to bugger them.
Pardon the language, everyone else, but it’s the metaphor that fits.
OhNoesItsMe
Ah yes, kill off enough of the British and block the borders and you’ll be happy, as you chant hate myths. Wages are far too high for you, there’s far too much housing and the welfare cap is 100% too high for your tastes, rights.
Keep demanding you get everything, no exceptions, and the state must do your rape and plunder for you, that you shouldn’t even pay for that.
Henry Page
‘the biggest robbers of the poor’ is not the state but the capitalist system, occasionally aided by the state. What is Housing Benefit? (HB) It’s a government benefit – a subsidy – paid to poorer people because they don’t earn enough money to pay their rent without difficulties. What are income-related benefits? They’re benefits – subsidies – that are paid to poorer people because otherwise they would have insufficient money to live. These benefits represent subsidies to the capitalist system – to employers (the makers) – because earnings for poor people are too low for them (the takers) to be able to live by their earned income alone.
“Just under two-thirds of Housing Benefit recipients were also in receipt of Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, income-based Employment and Support Allowance or Pension Credit (Guarantee Credit)” Source: ONS
That paragraph reveals that at least one-third of HB claimants are in employment. You can work part-time and earn more money whilst on income-based benefits and many do (they must declare this work). The revelation here is that the state is subsidising employers by paying this benefit to working people. How many more are there that are receiving Working Tax Credit but not receiving HB?
I suspect their are few in this epoch that want to see the end of capitalism, but what has to be managed is the fiscal intervention by the state. The notion that you can live in a capitalist zone and not receive benefits serves to deny the poorly paid access to acceptable housing and avoidance of a life of poverty.
The Waltons income is subsidised by the state in the UK. The Waltons are, ipso facto< vicariously benefitting from income-based state benefits. Free market forces have created this anomaly because we must be competitive, but we must also lift people out of poverty. What’s your answer?
John
Depends how you look at it. In terms of equality we’re a third-world country now.