BLAIR’S BRITAIN, 1997–2007
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now once again the under-dogs, not over-mighty subjects. As long as a
New Labour government did not need to introduce a national incomes
policy under which trade unions could act as enforcers of wage restraint
on their unwilling members, they would not be able to exercise any
effective leverage over its public policies. Every Labour Prime Minister
before Blair had been eventually driven by adverse circumstances into
seeking a negotiated bargain with the trade unions to deal with the
country’s economic troubles. This was no longer an imperative for Blair
in what was, during his years in government, a booming and relatively
trouble-free economy. In a deliberate move, the incoming Prime Minister
refused to see the TUC during his first six months in Downing Street.
This demonstrated that he did not need them in order to govern, and that
they were not essential for the success of the New Labour project.
But as TUC general secretaries John Monks (to September 2003) and
Brendan Barber (for the later period) admitted, this did not mean that
his government held the trade unions at arm’s length or sought to confront them.8 They agreed that Blair’s arrival opened doors and corridors
in Whitehall that had been locked to the trade union movement for
nearly eighteen years. While the Department of Employment was not reestablished, and no senior minister was given the specific role of representing trade union interests around the cabinet table, an informal
network of personal connections and links was established between the
TUC, ministers and relevant government departments. The arrangement
may not have enjoyed the same status as the myriad of institutions and
8 Author’s separate interviews with John Monks and Brendan Barber, April 2007.
committees that had existed in the Wilson or even Attlee years, but it was
far better than nothing. ‘We enjoyed a steady traffic between ourselves
and government on a daily basis’, Barber pointed out. ‘We need to keep
the suggestion of hostilities between the trade unions and New Labour in
perspective. What we had was not perfect but it was far better than what
we had under the Conservatives.’ However, Blair was keen to avoid any
suggestion that this might lead to any return to the kind of institutionbuilding that had characterised earlier Labour governments. It is true
that he did not abolish tripartite bodies like the Advisory, Conciliation
and Arbitration Service, the Health and Safety Commission and the
Equal Opportunities Commission that had survived the Thatcher/Major
era, although he cut back their budgets and reduced their activities. He
also agreed to establish an independent Low Pay Commission to advise
and monitor the annual upgrading of the national minimum wage after
its arrival in 1998. That body, with its members appointed from among
employers, trade unionists and academics, proved to be highly successful
in raising the pay of the poorest workers, but it did not become a model
for use in other policy areas. Blair agreed to the creation of ad hoc committees, task groups, temporary commissions, public inquiries and the
like to deal with specific employment issues such as gender at work equality, pensions and training. What he would not countenance was a multilateral bargaining approach between capital, labour and the state. Blair
preferred to encourage bilateral relations, with the forces of capital and
labour directed through his Downing Street policy unit and relevant government departments in an often complex decision-making process of
triangulation.
In adopting an openly hostile attitude to corporatist tendencies, Blair
believed he was merely reflecting the changing new world of work.
Increasingly de-industrialisation, occupational shifts to private service
employment and away from manufacturing, and the marked decline
in private sector collective bargaining coverage were creating a more
individualistic, more decentralised form of industrial relations, which
emphasised flexibility, pluralism and personal choice. Non-unionism
was now the norm across swathes of the private sector so that only an estimated 16% of employees were organised by trade unions by 2006.
Increasingly younger workers aged between sixteen and twenty-four –
known as Thatcher’s children – saw little point in being trade union
members. Blair was also unwilling to encourage new forms of collectivism that would protect trade unions from change or provide them with
exclusive rights and privileges. He was not even prepared to say that his
,
government would encourage workers to join trade unions, even in the
government’s own labour force. The Prime Minister argued that trade
unions were to be provided with only limited statutory freedoms and that
these would be mainly designed to help in the establishment of ‘strong
markets, modern companies and an enterprise economy’.9 Blair wanted
trade unions outside the public sector to become less traditional collective bargainers and more learning organisations for their members, personal service providers, and partners with companies in the creation of
high-performance workplaces. Modest state funds were established to
assist in the creation of partnerships at work and in promoting trade
union modernisation and learning. Blair’s approach was far removed
from the social justice and political equity concerns of Labour’s past.
But despite his genuine scepticism about the willingness of trade
unions to change their structures and strategies, Blair honoured his
limited policy commitments, although not without some anxieties in the
TUC that he would walk away from his promises. The resulting 1999
Employment Relations Act and a mildly amending measure passed three
years later (The Employment Act 2002) were evidence enough of his
intentions. Admittedly Blair pointed out that when implemented the proposed legal reforms for recognition would still leave Britain with the most
lightly regulated labour market of any leading economy in the world.
Moreover, he made it clear to the TUC that this was all the trade unions
could expect from New Labour and that what was to be implemented was
not to be seen as the first instalment of any strategy for trade union
advance towards a final industrial relations settlement reached on their
terms. He was also keen to point out that the legislation was not designed
to promote the collective, but to underpin individualism in the workplace. What he sought, he claimed, was the creation of a statutory minimalist framework that steered a cautious path between the absence of
minimum standards of protection at the workplace and a return to the
laws of the past. It was based on the rights of the individual employee,
whether exercised on their own or with others as a matter of personal
choice. It also sought to match rights with responsibilities and draw a line
under the issue of industrial relations law by bringing forty years of sporadic industrial strife to a close. Of course, what Blair agreed to implement fell far short of trade union aspirations. Moreover, it was based on
the questionable premise that an individual in the workplace was involved
in a partnership of equals with his or her employer. In fact, the rights
9 Fairness at Work, White Paper, Cm. 3969 (London: TSO, 1997).
gained were only really achievable if employees secured effective representation either through a trade union or the services of a solicitor. Blair
seemed to accept this. Under the 1999 Act the introduction of a legal right
for a worker to be accompanied by a person of their choice in a disciplinary issue provided a means for trade unions to gain access to companies.
But the new more militant generation of union leaders elected democratically through the ballot box in 2002 and 2003 demanded much more
than this. They wanted in particular Blair’s acceptance of fundamental
labour rights for workers as enshrined in core ILO conventions that had
been signed by previous UK governments. The so-called Warwick
Accords, negotiated between the Labour Party and the trade unions in
2004, assembled a list of proposals for improving workplaces, but there
were always doubts whether these modest suggestions would lead to
much energetic action by government in their implementation. Trade
union weakness – for all the bluster at Labour Party conferences – was
painfully apparent by early 2007. Union leaders threw their backing
behind a Private Member’s Bill that sought some mild amendments to
existing collective labour law under the name of trade union freedom,
but this measure even failed to secure private members’ time in the House
of Commons for debate after it met with strong government disapproval.
Even a Private Member’s Bill – strongly backed by the trade unions – to
more effectively regulate gang-masters who were found to be exploiting
contract foreign labour expired because insufficient Labour MPs bothered to support it.
Blair often found himself in alliance with the new former communist
states of central and eastern Europe as he opposed a number of legislative
proposals from the European Union that the British trade unions
wanted – such as full rights for agency workers and an end to the
country’s opt-out from the EU working time directive’s attempt to
impose a maximum forty-eight-hour working week. The TUC was also
compelled to fight a marathon campaign in support of legislation to give
consultation and information rights to workers if they wanted them.
Blair was joined by employer organisations to block the passage of that
measure through Brussels in a rearguard action. The government backed
down over it eventually, but only after finding itself in virtual isolation.
But by then the measure was so watered down it made little initial impact
on most companies. ‘It was a victory for us’, admitted John Cridland at
the CBI.
The public sector trade unions were to prove a constant irritation
to Blair and Brown as the government pursued its privatisation drive
,
through what remained outside the profit-making economy, and sought
to reform working practices and pay systems across the public services.
The Prime Minister was upset by the unions’ stubborn attempt to defend
what he saw as restrictive labour practices and inefficiencies. Blair wanted
to ensure value for taxpayers’ money by forcing public sector workers
into an acceptance of the values of the private market through the spread
of private finance initiatives, competitive tendering, and the subcontracting-out of services to private profit-makers. Trade unions fought
hard to uphold professional standards in the public sector and they tried
to oppose the debilitating cult of managerialism that swept through the
health service and the rest of the public sector under Blair. The state
selling-off of air traffic control and the London Underground aroused
predictable trade union resistance, especially as it involved pouring billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money into the pockets of often inefficient
private companies. The fire-fighters tried to defend their ways of working
through strike action but were heavily defeated in 2004–5. Blair was successful in pressing for a modernisation of public sector bargaining in
central and local government. New pay systems put an end to ancient
inequalities between manual and non-manual workers, while gender
differences narrowed and hours of work were harmonised. But by the end
of his premiership Blair regretted that he had not stood up more firmly to
public sector unionism in his commodification of the public services.
Blair’s admiration for private sector capitalism was coupled with a willingness to try and influence the behaviour of companies towards their
employees. It is true little was done to legislate on corporate manslaughter
to make named employers liable for prosecution over accidents at work.
The government’s deregulation taskforce stressed the need for cutting red
tape, reducing risk assessment in workplaces and placating companies
who wanted to be left alone to get on with their business activities without
the over-intrusion of the law.
But this did not mean that New Labour was content to unshackle
employers to enjoy an undisputed unilateral power over those who
worked for them. Blair also presided over what amounted to an unacknowledged workplace revolution through a massive growth in the provision of individual employee rights. Some of the measures that were
introduced were based on legally enforceable directives emanating from
the European Commission, but many others were not. A few owed their
existence to American good human resource management practices.
Others reflected Blair’s view of the individualised world of paid work. It
was said that much of his family-friendly workplace agenda of maternity
Table 11.1. Rights through regulated labour markets
•
Qualifying period for unfair dismissal reduced from two to one year’s
employment tenure.
•
Unfair dismissal compensation raised and index-linked.
•
Outlawing of waiver clauses for unfair dismissal rights in fixed-term
employment contracts.
•
Rights to be accompanied by a trade union official, or anybody else, in
disciplinary and grievance hearings before the employer.
•
Part-time workers to have equal rights to full-time workers.
•
Individual contracts for employees who want to opt out of a collective
agreement.
•
Extension of maternity leave rights from fourteen to twenty-six weeks’ leave
from the day the woman starts work, but also entitled to a further twenty-six
weeks’ leave.
•
A right to extend unpaid maternity leave and unpaid parental leave after one
year’s service with an employer.
•
The right to return to one’s job or a suitable alternative after maternity leave.
•
The right not to be treated unfavourably on return to work after maternity
leave, nor to be dismissed or selected for redundancy for any reason
conne
cted with pregnancy or maternity.
•
The right for up to twenty-six weeks off work for adoption leave, with a
possible further twenty-six weeks.
•
The right for parents to request flexible working from an employer to
consider, but no automatic right to such arrangements.
•
A right to ‘reasonable’ unpaid time off work in such cases as domestic
incidents such as deaths and accidents within the family or involving
dependants and friends.
•
Annual paid leave for four weeks.
•
Exclusion of public holidays from the length of holiday entitlement.
•
Restrictions on night working to eight hours.
•
Minimum daily and weekly rest periods at work.
•
Measures to strengthen protections for workers under the age of eighteen.
•
Right not to be discriminated against at work on grounds of gender, age, race,
disablement, sexual orientation or working part-time.
Trade union rights
•
Automatic trade union recognition where over 50% of the relevant workforce
is in union membership.
•
Trade union recognition by ballot where a majority of the relevant employees
or at least 40% of the workforce vote ‘yes’.
•
Protection for workers from victimisation by the employer when campaigning
for union recognition.
,
Table 11.1. ( cont. )
•
Discrimination by omission or blacklisting on grounds of trade union
membership, non-membership and other activities made unlawful.
•
Employers cannot recognise a non-independent (‘sweetheart’) union to
bypass the legislation.
•
Where recognition exists, the union must be consulted on training.
•
Removal of the requirement to name union members in notices of
industrial action.
•
Dismissal of strikers taking part in lawfully organised disputes is
automatically unfair for twelve weeks, and only fair thereafter if the
employer is deemed to take reasonable procedural steps to try and resolve
•
the dispute.
A more detailed coverage can be found in the TUC’s Your Rights at Work