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”
LB
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.
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Not quite accurate. Let me put the school master hat on and correct it.
What is Housing Benefit? (HB) It’s a government benefit – a subsidy – paid to poorer people by taking it from the better off, less the state’s cut because they don’t earn enough money after the state has taxed them to pay their rent without difficulties.
That’s a more accurate statement. The two critical points you’ve missed.
1. It’s taken from someone else, including the people receiving it.
2. The state is taxing the poor to the extent then need handouts.
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These benefits represent subsidies to the capitalist system
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Almost. It can be a subsidy for them to employ those that don’t make enough profit to cover the cost of employing them. What would be wrong with that? You need to address what happens with those that are unprofitable to employ.
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“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
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Wouldn’t surprise me. On top I’d expect more than 2/3rds to have their earnings taken from them by the state. It’s after tax income from which you have to pay rent.
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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.
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But its not a capitalist system. HB is a socialist system. It’s part of the welfare state. Now look at the question of what is the true cost to the working poor of the welfare state.
For that you need to do an accurate comparison. What they get now, and what they could have got from an alternative. That’s the comparison. You also need a proper accounting of their share of the state’s liabilities.
So take the state pension. The poor are forced to rely on it for their old age. 5.7K a year and no lump sum. The true state debt is 9 trillion. so they have 300K of debt on top.
The alternative is that they invested their NI in the FTSE (proxy for investments). That would give 836K as a lump sum. 28K a year income not touching the capital. The pensions debts wouldn’t exist, just the borrowing. That’s 40K. They are much much better off.
The reason is that in order to get richer you have to spend less than you have coming in and invest the surplus. That applies to the rich and the poor.
Under the current system, the poor are not allowed their surplus, the NI, because the state takes it, gives it to someone else. Hence they don’t build up assets and remain poor. The rich do the opposite.
So the answer is to
1. Not take money from the poor.
2. Force them to invest their NI.
If you want to discuss there are sensible safety nets for those that cannot save enough to live off.
I agree, Blair was no friend of the poor. He carried on taxing them. The Tories aren’t either, although they are helping with the increase in tax allowances. They haven’t bitten the bullet on the NI front. They are just angling to turn that into a tax, and that enables them to not pay the state pension. It will all be welfare.
On housing, there are two sides, supply and demand. You miss the biggy, demand. The reason is you have to discuss unfettered migration. Increases in demand push up prices unless they is a 1:1 increase in supply.
Pension’s policy, Brown’s tax raid have pushed people into BTL. They don’t trust the state. That tax raid would knock 100K off a median wage earner’s pot outlined above. Stamp duty knocks 10K off. When you are on 26K that’s a major hit.
Interest rate policy and BTL also has a massive effect.
So some solution are.
1. Stop low paid migration so that they must pay more tax than average government spend per head to come here. ie. No subsidy for migration.
2. That also benefits the poor. The jobs are still there, the unemployed get them, and the shortage drives up wages.
3. Stop taxing the poor. Period.
4. Stop wasting money.
I doubt that this is enough, because of the debts. They are growing too fast for any government to pay. So I conclude violence will be the result.
moomin
How about we ban governments without 50% of the vote?
Mark Rahner
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Henry Page
“Not quite accurate. Let me put the school master hat on and correct it. What is Housing Benefit? (HB) It’s a government benefit – a subsidy – paid to poorer people by taking it from the better off, less the state’s cut because they don’t earn enough money after the state has taxed them to pay their rent without difficulties.”
In a social democratic state (not socialist, for that the UK is not) the state has to provide certain agencies (police, defence, justice and similar) and also health and education. You may disagree with some of those provisions, but the simple fact is that most developed countries have them.
I am not going to argue their merits or demerits because I fundamentally believe that the people in a country require a government or ‘state’ to facilitate these and similar services. I also feel that there is a need for affordable housing as poorer people must be able to access basic accommodation which is in a habitable state and is within their means. In the early 1970s, for every £16 spent on local authority housing, £4 was spent on rent subsidy. The ratio is now for every £1 spent on social housing, £19 is spent on rent subsidy by way of Housing Benefit. The number of social housing units has fallen just as dramatically as the Local Housing Allowance budget has risen, not entirely cause and effect, I know, but certainly there is some correlation between the lack of affordable housing and the outrageously high LHA annual spend (estimated at £23.4bn by 2016-17).
(TBC – busy!)
PoundInYourPocket
I don’t want to ruin the world-view you’ve taken refuge in, but just to add some facts to the argument, the ONS data shows that net mmigration from EU countries was 87,000 at the last count, that’s only 0.29% of the workforce. That’s not a sufficient number to affect the UK labour market and pay rates. Even if you assume that these migrants are only competing with those on lower incomes, it’s still not a sufficient number to affect the labour market.