Report: More anti-union legislation in the UK

Abstract

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 22 Volume 22 Issue 2 2015 REPORT ❐ UK LABOUR LAW Cameron cloaked his legislative program in the language of assisting ‘working people’ In reality, the Queen’s Speech unleashed a rolling programme of attacks on working class people, of which the attack on trade unions is only part. What we wanted. In the run up to the general election, the Institute of Employment Rights issued a ten point Charter of employment law reforms for an incoming government to consider. Such proposals would help to secure social justice, democracy in the workplace, a reduction in inequality and the stimulation of the economy (See Box 1). If implemented those policies would also go some way to addressing the failure of successive UK governments to uphold international labour standards. Box 1: Labour Law: What we want 1. The right to a decent wage and to a decent income for those not in employment 2. The effective regulation of zero hours contracts 3. The right of every worker to be protected by a collective agreement 4. The re-establishment of sectoral collective bargaining and Wages Councils 5. The re-establishment of a Ministry of Labour 6. The right to strike in accordance with international law 7. The removal of a qualifying period for unfair dismissal 8. The restoration of the redundancy consultation rights 9. The right to legal protection for everyone who works, regardless of their legal status (‘employee’, ‘self-employed’, ‘agency worker’ etc.) 10. The right of all workers to access to justice, including the abolition of tribunal fees. Professor Keith Ewing & John Hendy QC Were the IER’s demands too high? Since 1979 the UK has diminished collective rights in favour of individual rights; the negotiating table was increasingly replaced by the court room as the place to resolve employment disputes. The last government ended that by suddenly imposing penal fees on claimants seeking to take a case to such an extent that employment tribunals have themselves with 80 percent less work to do. In consequence workplace disagreements are now typically resolved neither by collective bargaining nor litigation but are left to management prerogative. But was it really too radical to ask an incoming government to correct the much criticised faultlines in the UK’s labour law? As recently as O n 7 May 2015 the first majority Conservative Government in 20 years took power in the UK. Just 20 days later, one of the most vindictive pieces of anti-trade union legislation since Thatcher, was announced in ‘the Queen’s Speech’ (which sets out the government’s legislative programme ). It is vindictive because, even from the Tories perspective, further restrictions on trade unions cannot be justified given that, as Tony Blair long ago and rightly pointed out, the UK already has the ‘most restrictive laws on trade unions in the Western world’ (none of which was moderated by the Labour Party’s 13 years in office). Here we assess some of the implications of that vote and distinguish the ‘pro-worker’ rhetoric from the legislative realities. A disaster waiting to happen Without a doubt the election result was a disaster on many fronts. It was a disaster for democracy. The result exposed the political distortions inherent in the UK’s first-past-the-post electoral system. The Conservatives won a 12-seat majority despite winning only 36 percent of the votes cast and only 24 percent of the registered electorate. This equates to less than 20 percent of those eligible to register as voters. It was a disaster for the Labour Party. Labour failed to expose the true nature of the austerity agenda or offer a suitably robust, progressive alternative. It is not surprising therefore that though working class people, as usual, recorded many more votes for Labour than for the Conservatives (41 percent to 27 percent), they were much less likely to turn out and vote than upper class people (57 percent to75 percent)1 . In consequence, not only did Labour fail to win back the four million voters they lost during their 13 years of government but they haemorrhaged their vote in Scotland to the anti-austerity, anti-trident (missile) voice of the SNP. Most importantly...