Trade unions: co-ercion or cooperation (version2)

A friend has very kindly reformatted the previous post and corrected the many typos and spelling errors. Let's see if the published version will retain these improvements. Friday, 13 January 2023 Trade unions: coercion or co-operation? Since the 1980s, the days of the Thatcher governments and trade unions as "the enemy within, " there has been a plethora of legislation designed to restrict the ability of trade unions to make their case. • Sympathy strikes (aka secondary action), have been outlawed and the right to picket restricted: • Unions are no longer permitted to strike on the decision the executive committee, or a show of hands, but a ballot in support has been required; • since 1984 (an interesting year in coercive history) the ballots have had to be postal, so very expensive for the union to organise; a simple majority in such a ballot is not sufficient - the turnout must be at least 50% and at least 40% of the total membership must have voted in favour;* • Unions have been required to give at least 7 days notice of the intention to strike (it may now be 14); employers have the right to seek an injunction if they can show that not all the correct procedures have been followed; • the unions' immunity from being sued over lost trade or profits resulting from a strike, established by the overturning of the Taff Vale Judgement by the Liberal government of 1906, has been reduced; • if a union wishes to have a political fund to support a party it must gain approval from the membership via a ballot (this one has backfired on the Tories - more unions now have political funds which contribute to the Labour Party than before the act. Sadly there is no provision for the membership to stipulate which party, so we Liberal Democrats still get nothing); • the internal rules and procedures of each union are subject to supervision by an external body set up by the government. The latest coercive move, introduced into parliament this week, is to try to legislate that during strikes "key services" must maintain "minimum service levels." This is a totally unnecessary, and potentially counter-productive, move because they already do. The International Labour Organisation (I.L.O) of which the UK is a founder member, has customs which provide for this. In the darkest days of the Miners' Strike the pits were kept operational, air-flows were maintained, and safety and security procedures continued. During the current NHS dispute the nurses continue to perform emergency work, and the Ambulance and Fire and Rescue services continue to respond to "life and limb" calls. As in Europe, these arrangements are made at local level, as far as I know amicably, and taking into account local requirements. The Government's Bill, which probably contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights (nothing to do with the EU and of which the UK is a founder and still a signatory) would enable the government bullies to blunder in, determine conditions, unilaterally declare them to have been breached - and them what? Sack the workers involved and leave, say, the health and education services shorter of key operatives than they already are? Clearly the aim of the legislation is not to try to resolve the current disputes or to protect the public, but twofold: to persuade Tory Party members that the government is stiffened with the Thatcherite determination that so many of them admire: and in the hope that the voting public will fail to read between the lines and turn against the strikers, and therefore the Labour party, and towards a government fighting to look after them. It has been a Liberal/Liberal Democrat tenet for all the years I've been a member that employment relations should not be a battleground but an area of co-operation. Rather that further conflict between capital and labour (if those two concepts still have relevance) we need structures to encourage employers and employees to work together, such as employee representation on boards and, where appropriate, a sharing of the profits. *Just to spell this out, this means that, on a 50% turnout, there needs to be a vote in favour of 80% for a strike to be valid. The Brixit referendum would not have reached the threshold required of a union vote because only 37% of those entitled to vote chose Leave. There's one law for some things and another for others.