Remember the good old days of beer and sandwiches at Number Ten? Actually, that’s a slightly misleading question. They might have been good for a small number of trade union leaders and even many of their members – in the short term at least – but whether they were good for British industry is debatable. And if your memory needs refreshing, I’m referring to the sixties when Harold Wilson was prime minister and the union leaders were exceedingly powerful.
The way it worked was quite simple. They would make a demand for higher pay. Their employers would say they couldn’t afford it. They would threaten to strike and Wilson would invite them into Number Ten for a chat and offer them a deal. Job done. But then Margaret Thatcher came along and everything changed.
When Arthur Scargill announced the miners were going on strike if the National Coal Board went ahead with its plans to close twenty unprofitable collieries there was no invitation to Number Ten. Quite the opposite. The result was the biggest, longest and bloodiest industrial dispute in post-war Britain and Thatcher won. Industrial relations had been transformed.
As Nicholas Jones, the BBC’s formidable industrial correspondent, wrote later: “In the late 1970s, millions of days a year were being lost through strike action but at the end of her premiership stoppages were a fraction of what they had once been. Slowly but surely the unions’ strike weapon was emasculated. Strike ballots were required by law; walkouts were no longer possible on a show of hands in a car park; flying pickets and secondary action had been outlawed; and most importantly of all, a union's assets were at risk if there was ‘unlawful’ action. By the late 1980s the all-out strike was history.”
Over the years since then, successive Conservative governments have been tightening the screws on the remaining powers of trade unions. And now we have a Labour government which, in some respects, is determined to redress the balance. Not that anyone is proposing a return to the days when a show of hands in a car park could bring half the motor manufacturing industry to a halt. Nor is anyone anticipating a boom in trade union membership and a return to the high watermark of twelve million union members, but the new proposals do suggest a government that wants a different relationship with the unions.
It has confirmed that it will repeal legislation introduced by the Conservatives that meant workers could be sacked for refusing to work during a strike if they were identified by their employer as being essential to maintain minimum levels of service. It’s pretty obvious what that could mean in the context of, say, keeping the trains running or schools and even hospitals. Or government departments.
But ministers say that the law – called the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act – simply has not worked. Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, said it had “got us nowhere” and Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said Britain has lost more days to strike action than France since it came into force. Government departments have already been told to disregard the rules on minimum service levels and promised that a new employment law will go before Parliament within the next 100 days. In the meantime, both Rayner and Reynolds have said employers should find other ways to resolve disputes and to negotiate with trade unions.
In a policy paper released on Tuesday, the Department for Business and Trade said: “The policy of this government is that minimum service levels […] unduly restrict the right to strike and undermine good industrial relations. […] We strongly encourage employers to seek alternative mechanisms for dispute resolution, including voluntary agreements, rather than imposing minimum service levels.”
Ministers said industrial action in the NHS alone cost the taxpayer £1.7 billion last year, with many other sectors also seeing costs and impacts on public services. It proved that ‘strong but fair’ negotiation was key to tackling issues between workers and employers. Rayner and Reynolds have also written to the government departments with sectors most affected by strikes – education, health, transport, energy and the Home Office – as well as to the Welsh and Scottish governments to give a ‘clear message’ that the legislation will be repealed.
Rayner said: “Attempting to clamp down on the fundamental freedom of working people has got us nowhere and this was targeted at sectors who dedicate their lives to serving us all. That’s why we’re scrapping this pointless law. […] By removing minimum service levels, we will reset industrial relations so they are based on good-faith negotiation and bargaining, ending the chaos and restoring trust in public services.”
All this has, unsurprisingly, been welcomed by the trade unions including the British Medical Association, Unison, the Royal College of Nursing, the transport sector’s RMT, and the National Association of Head Teachers. They argued that the Tory rules had unduly restricted the right to strike. Labour’s proposals were hailed as signalling a “new, grown-up era of industrial relations”.
Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, said the imposition of minimum service levels had been ‘vindictive’ and ‘unworkable’, “The new government is right to repeal this spiteful legislation”.
The big question that remains, though, is what exactly will the government propose in its new regulation and what the changes will mean for employers. Its election manifesto had called for bans on “exploitative zero-hours contracts”; ending the practice of “fire and rehire”, where workers are fired and replaced with others on poorer pay, terms and conditions; and giving staff rights to parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal from day one.
Craig Beaumont, the head of external affairs at the Federation of Small Businesses, was a little sceptical: “Labour said we were going to get these new rights in the first 100 days, but now it’s ‘we’re going to basically take 100 days to decide what to do’.”
Many small businesses worry about the effect on wages. There were two large increases to the minimum wage under the Tories totalling nearly 20 percent. Labour has pledged to “remove the discriminatory age bands so all adults are entitled to the same minimum wage”. It is not yet clear whether they are counting 16-year-olds as adults. Mark Derry, who employs 1,600 people at his chain of restaurants and pubs, says this would add £1 million to the payroll: “They’re expecting us to put a 16-year-old on the same as a 21-year-old with five years’ experience.”
Gavin Roy, another pub owner, said: “Small businesses like ours need to employ kids of 15 or 16 years old. If Labour says we have to pay them £11.44 an hour, I genuinely don’t know what we’d do – I’d have to ask my wife to come in and work for free.”
Nimisha Raja, the founder of the crisp-maker Nim’s, said: “Younger people wouldn’t get employed because if we have to pay the same amount of money, we’d always choose somebody older with more experience. The last thing I want to do is underpay my staff, but the cost of labour has outpaced inflation every year for as long as I can remember. And these days, you can’t pass on the cost to the customer or they’ll stop coming.” A decade ago, he said, 28 percent of his revenues went on labour costs. Today, that’s 36 percent.
But all this, of course, assumes that Mr Raja and many thousands of other employers across the land will not have other – possibly even bigger – things to worry about when the government unveils its new strike laws. Not to mention those who manage our vital public sectors such as healthcare, education and transport.
The chances of returning to the days of beer and sandwiches at Number10 may be non-existent, but do you share Sir Keir Starmer’s view that we must find different ways of resolving disputes and, in effect, changing the relationship between unions and bosses? Maybe an invitation to Number 10 but without the beer!
Let us know what you think.
