30.04.1998

TUC prepares retreat

Monks will not reclaim our rights

The release of the government’s white paper on employment law, ‘Fairness at work’, is to be further delayed following a failure of the Trades Union Congress and Downing Street to find agreement on the key issue of union recognition. Union leaders met with the prime minister last Monday prior to the TUC’s general council meeting.

Far from a return to beer and sandwiches at No10, according to the Financial Times (April 28), the 90-minute meeting was “cold and formal” with the only refreshments on offer being glasses of water. Leaving TUC general secretary John Monks and his chums to stew, Blair has said he is prepared to meet the ‘inner six’ union leaders again in two week’s time. The TUC has postponed its special conference on union recognition scheduled for May 6 until the white paper is released.

Tony Blair is supporting the Confederation of British Industry against the TUC. With negotiations deadlocked, it seems that the white paper will not be finalised until the end of May. The Lord Chancellor has warned that if there is no document by then, there is unlikely to be any legislation ready for the next parliamentary session.

The key sticking points are what should constitute a majority in a workplace ballot for recognition; whether small firms should be exempt (including the definition of a small firm); and over what, and for whom, recognition entitles unions to negotiate.

The TUC wants a simple majority of those voting in union-defined bargaining units to be sufficient to qualify for statutory recognition. The CBI is arguing for an absolute majority of those entitled to vote - in a unit defined by the employer. Abstentions would in this way count as ‘nos’. The Labour Party’s pre-election promise on recognition was deliberately ambiguous on what constituted a majority, stating that there would be “a legal obligation on employers to recognise a union for collective bargaining where a majority of the relevant workforce vote to be represented by a trade union”.

Up until now, Blair has been urging the TUC and CBI to sort their differences out between themselves. Now it is crunch time. With pressure mounting to get even limited legislation into parliament it is the TUC which blinked first. Last week, John Monks announced that he was prepared to accept a 30% threshold - a minimum percentage in favour of union recognition from all those entitled to vote - alongside a simple majority of those voting.

While a position paper released after Monday’s general council meeting does not mention the 30% figure, it concedes “there could be a case for specifying a minimum ‘yes’ vote”. It goes on to argue that a figure of 40%, which is favoured by Blair and is believed to be acceptable to the CBI, “would be unreasonable and unworkable”.

The TUC document is thoroughly class collaborationist. While attempting to concede nothing concrete at this stage, it lays the framework for backsliding on all outstanding issues. For example, on small firm exemption the CBI defines ‘small’ as under 50 employees. The TUC argues: “We reject the idea of any threshold that would exclude significant number of workers from bargaining rights”; but “acknowledge that in very small firms - with, say, 10 employees or under - a ballot may not be appropriate”. Such an approach comes from a bureaucratic impulse to come to an agreement, no matter what. Concessions are based on pure pragmatism, not underpinned by any principle. Such an approach means anything or anyone can be sold down the river, and probably will be. So much for GMB boss John Edmonds saying unions will ‘do a Countryside Alliance’ over recognition.

Not surprisingly, the entire tone of the document is for industrial peace. This approach is no diplomatic fig leaf, but represents a real desire to come to a quick settlement which is “fair, reasonable and workable”, as John Monks puts it. In contrast, the CBI has been intransigent. Until Monks won the TUC general council over to the 30% threshold, the CBI did not budge. Now that the unions have moved onto their turf, the bosses can appear to compromise and move to the 40% figure backed by Blair.

Throughout, Blair has been determined not to be seen to back down to the unions. Attempting to defuse any claims that he is opposed to workplace democracy, he has said that the white paper will address all employees, not just unionists. Despite this he faces difficulties in demanding an absolute ‘yes’ vote in what are in effect workplace referendums on union recognition, whereas his own rigged referendums in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and London have no requirement for an absolute majority. In addition Blair has potential problems on the back bench. Derek Foster, Labour chair of the Commons employment subcommittee, has backed the TUC on recognition ballots. John Monks said hopefully that the TUC “expects our position to receive wide support in the cabinet and throughout the parliamentary Labour Party”. On past form, any Labour left opposition - parliamentary, union or amongst the rank and file - is likely to crumble pretty soon.

Given tension and cracks at the top, the response of the left is critical. So far, most of the revolutionary left has offered up varying versions of the ‘crisis of expectations’ thesis. This holds that by having automatically called for a vote for Labour on May 1 1997, we set the stage for History with a capital H to trigger militancy from the millions of atomised workers who voted for Blair in the vain hope that ‘he couldn’t be as bad as the Tories’. The left, according to this schema, need not raise a finger independently of the spontaneity of the masses - just follow them into the polling booth and wait for them to fall into our lap. Last May, groups such as the Socialist Party, SWP and the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty were suggesting the possibility of a fall-out of France 1936 proportions between the industrial and parliamentary wings of the Labour Party. Clearly poppycock.

Such a complacent approach relies on a mechanical characterisation of the class struggle. This is beautifully summed up by Workers Power, which admits that it “overestimated the speed with which a conflict between Blair and the trade unions would take place” (Workers Power April 1998). This passivity and craven tailing of the Labourite union bureaucracy presumes a clash is inevitable. Over the past year, we have had Blair boast of the most restrictive union laws in the western world; we have seen the abolition of single parents’ benefit and the student grant. Universal unemployment insurance is being wiped out in favour of a draconian workfare scheme. The disabled are under attack. There has been imperialist sabre-rattling in the Gulf. Where is the bureaucratic rebellion? If we believe Workers Power, it is just a matter of time...

Thirteen years of a Labor government in Australia, originally elected on a platform more along the lines of traditional social democratic reform, failed to produce any clash between the unions and government. In fact, the unions were hand in glove with Labor right throughout their attacks on the working class. The Australian Council of Trade Unions went so far as to actively support the government’s deregistration of two unions which would not toe the line. It has taken the election of a conservative Liberal-National coalition for the union bureaucracy to stand up to the government in Australia.

A schism between the unions and Blair is not automatic. It must be fought for. This is not to say it will not happen. Such an assessment would be equally mechanical. However, by waiting for history, the revolutionary left will be left behind, tailing the bureaucracy. And the bureaucracy will of course be there with the initiative, taking any spontaneous movement only so far, before trying to hose it down.

Given such a situation, the Socialist Labour Party’s ‘Reclaim Our Rights’ initiative could be crucial. While it has not yet shaken any foundations, the likes of Edmonds, Monks and Bickerstaffe will be keeping a nervous eye to their left. Nine national unions have affiliated already. The Communist Party of Britain’s Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions seems sidelined. Dozens of regional and local unions are on board. There is support from much of the revolutionary left and militant minority groups, such as the Campaign for a Fighting Democratic Unison.

Nevertheless, there is a long way to go. Moves to organise a demonstration in a year’s time on May 1 1999 is not necessarily the prelude to the sort of illegal action and picketing which the maritime workers in Australia have used to reach the point of victory. In Britain, heroic struggles are few and far between and - like the Liverpool dockers and, just last week, the Magnet Kitchen strikers - are left isolated and are eventually forced to surrender.

Given the ease with which Monks has conceded ground over union recognition, a strategy of depending on the TUC to lead a campaign to defeat the anti-trade union laws is clearly disastrous. Yet this is precisely what has been proposed by Bob Crow and John Hendy, chair and secretary of ROR. A difference is emerging at the top of the SLP between Scargill and Crow/Hendy over the TUC. So far, Scargill has his fellow national executive members on a long leash. The miners’ president may let them freelance for a while - the ROR-type framework allows him to play from the left. He could yet front a mass movement against Blair.

Those who have walked out of the SLP - supposedly splitting to the left - now look foolish. Most are back where they feel most at ease: tailing Labour in their small grouplets. Yet Scargill is no answer. Far from it. He is no believer in rank and file control and has already been seen to squeeze militant minority groups from the official ROR structures, provisional as they may be. Scargill may not want to put his faith in the TUC in the manner of Hendy or Crow, yet he prefers a structure in which union general secretaries feel comfortable to any militant minority movement from below. For the AWL to give this stitch-up a revolutionary cover is opportunist in the extreme, pleas about the interim nature of the ROR structure notwithstanding.

On the union front, there is some movement. So far it is painfully slow. The movement desperately needs the anti-union laws to be taken on and destroyed. But neither the unions nor the left is up to it in their present state. A successful struggle over trade union issues is inextricably linked with the need to take up a broader, political agenda.

Marcus Larsen