UK: A Further Integration of the Unions into the State

When seeking election in 1997, Blair’s New Labour was adamant that it would not relax the Tories anti-strike legislation. We characterise the Thatcherite anti-union laws as anti-strike, in the sense that they were primarily aimed at the workers’ ability to engage in strikes, and threatened the unions with fines to make them responsible for the ‘actions of their members’. Some fines were enforced, such as against the National graphical association over the printers’ resistance to strike-breaking, and because of the miners strike of 1984-5 (Scargill tried to spirit away funds outside the country – as if the banking system couldn’t trace them). But it was a marvellous excuse for the trade union leaders: what else could we do – we have to obey the law!

There would be no going back to ‘the bad old days’ of uncontrolled strikes, the Labour Party insisted. Although the trade unions are funders of the Labour Party, they would not be allowed to reverse the balance which Thatcher had decisively shifted against unofficial strikes, particularly after the ‘winter of discontent’ which had destabilised the previous Labour Government of Callaghan in 1978/9. In fact the Trade Union leaders didn’t want the Tories anti-union legislation reversing either – the last thing they want to see is outbursts of unofficial strikes, and movements outside their control.

The last Tory Government extended ’employment rights’ in 1996 by increasing the scope for Tribunals, to which those with complaints could go. The required minimum period of employment was reduced from two years to one, in order to make a complaint, and so reduce the likelihood of industrial action over dismissed workers. This was a boon for the union leaders, who would say to members that those dismissed might be able to get their jobs back, or compensation, if the workers concerned can win at a Tribunal; a process which can take six months or more, by which time the issues have been forgotten about. This avenue of Tribunals is to prevent the old workers remedy; industrial action, eg strikes, demonstrations and disruptions. It takes away from the workers the power to defend their own fellow workers. As always, the unions want to appear keen to help their members as individuals but not the working class as a whole.

The much heralded Labour Government’s redressing of the balance, and the returning of rights to workers, has started to come through. The much vaunted ‘National Minimum Wage’ (NMW) has been in effect for a short time. Representations from employers’ organisations had previously ranted on about the damaging effect the NMW would have on the economy: the destruction of jobs, and pressure to raise the wages of those on higher levels. Actually the reverse has tended to happen. While the NMW was set at less that £4 per hour it became not so much the minimum, but rather the bench-mark, the norm for the lowest paid. Workers now taken on for the least skilled jobs are often paid less than they would have been a few years ago. What had been the going rate for the lower paid (about £5 per hour) is now reserved for those who supervise or are responsible for the new intakes on the NMW. It has tended to reduce the real levels of wages, and generally speaking the employers are rather happy with the new system. Now the bosses who pay the least can bask in the glow of being ‘responsible employers’.

New Trade Union Recognition Rights

Now the Employment Relations Act (ERA) 1999, referred to as the Fairness at Work legislation, is in operation. It has been declared to be ‘the most significant legislative advance for working people and their trade unions for more than 20 years. It shifts the balance of legal rights at the workplace’ according to a pamphlet on employment rights. It has shifted the balance in favour of the (state registered) trade unions, but not for the interests of the workers.

Of course the employers’ organisation the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) had stated concerns that this was a Trojan Horse, a way of freeing the tight restraint under which the workers are held tightly bound, and herald a return to unending waves of strikes. Their fears have proved to be unfounded. The new legal systems are in place, and the workers are far from storming the bastions of power!

About half of the ERA 1999 is taken with the procedure for unions seeking recognition. Fundamental to the procedure is the setting up of a Central Arbitration Committee (CAC): to oversee the recognition of unions. The union or unions identify the ‘bargaining unit’ they have members in and request recognition. For the CAC to grant recognition the union must already have a ‘certificate of independence’. To be ‘independent’ a certification Officer must be satisfied that the trade union is independent of the employers (such as not being a ‘staff association’). Thus the state stands potentially as a guarantor of trade unions being sufficiently ‘independent’ of individual employers, but not of the bourgeoisie as a whole. The state wants industrial pay bargaining to at least appear to be effective, and the union leaders not to be in the pay of individual industrialists. But should any union leader be naive enough to think he can be really effective, he will soon be put in his place.

The rest of the new law is taken up with rights to grievance procedures, ballots and strikes, training, and so on.

The Historical Trajectory of the Unions in Britain

The following is a concise account of the development and integration of the trade unions firstly into bourgeois society, and finally into the state. It has of course been a rather uneven process, so there will have been overlaps in all this.

1) The first permanent unions – the skilled unions were the first ones to survive the original continuous offensives of the employers from the beginning of the 19th century. The leaders of the skilled men were then courted by the bourgeoisie as the representatives of the ‘labour aristocracy’. It was this group of union leaders that formed the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the 1860s, and earned the scathing remark by Karl Marx that it was ‘an honour not to be called an English trade union leader’. The deference of these leaders for the interests of the ruling class led to the first legal protection of the unions as organisation: the Trade Union Act 1871. The previous ‘criminal’ nature of union activities was at last removed.

2) The ‘new unions‘ – the upsurge of class struggle and union formation in the 1880s centred on the organisation of the dockers, gas workers and so on. This earned the name of new unions, in that they were more general in nature and combined the unskilled workers in determined struggle. It was this movement which gave great hopes to Engels, after such desolate decades of struggle against the bourgeoisified TUC. Within a couple of decades these troublesome new unions were incorporated into the mainstream of the TUC.

3) The Start of State Incorporation – the National Insurance Act (NIA) 1911 incorporated most of the union insurance benefits into the state system. This was done on the basis of contributions, from workers, employers, and the state, to provide a more comprehensive sickness, unemployment, and retirement benefit system. The system the unions had developed became largely redundant, except for strike pay (when it was actually paid out) and some minor benefits, and convalescent homes.

The centralising of the union affairs into the hands of its executive bodies meant that the influence of the mass of workers was removed. Union branches could not call out the workers on strike, and so became union fee collection points, and talking shops. At the same time the Trade Councils (local representative bodies of the union branches) were stripped of any rights to call strikes in their own right by the TUC. The stage was set for the wave of patriotism which swept the union leaders at the outbreak of war in 1914 – there was no one within the unions as bodies which could oppose them. They were laws unto themselves, protected in any case by the state registration system begun in 1871.

4) The start of Unofficial Movements – the start of the incorporation of union affairs into the state (the NIA 1911) saw the first upsurge of unofficial strikes in 1911, those outside of and against the unions’ control. This is the origin of the term ‘unofficial’, which can be applied to a multitude of situations. It has also become the main feature of the working class in the UK ever since. Few workers have left the unions, there having been attempts at ‘break-away unions’, but these were ruthlessly broken by the combined actions of the employers and the official unions. the only exception to that was the ‘great Northern Gaol Break’ of dockers in the northern ports out of the Transport & General Workers Union (TGWU) into the Stevedores and Dockers Union, which we have dealt with elsewhere. That ‘switch’ of unions became a cover for independent organisation of dockers for some decades, until that was destroyed by containerisation.

The patriotic cooperation of the union bosses, the term is quite appropriate as they act as if they personally own the unions anyway, led to another aspect of the unofficial movement – shop floor organisations. The shop stewards, called because they represented the wokers at the factory floor level, in each department, or shop, hence the name, had no direct connection with the union as a body. They weren’t answerable to the union branches, nor to the union officials, but originally answerable to, and replaceable by, the mass of workers. The shop stewards movement, and it could be called a movement at that time, was a result of the class struggle itself. This form of shop stewards movement was largely stamped out by the bosses, industrial and union, in the 1920s and 1930s. Since this period the (official) unions have become pillars of support of capitalism. They are so integrated that they are indistinguishable from any other part of capitalism.

5) The Shop Stewards Function – the shop stewards made their appearance during and after the second world war, in a reversed role to its appearance during the first world war. From 1940 onwards, the shop stewards were no longer a movement, but an officially sanctioned apparatus for ensuring production was kept moving. They became ‘trouble-shooters’, called in when problems arose and workers were refusing to cooperate, or there were problems in production.

One way in which Britain fought the war 1939-45 was the use of bonus payments, the famous payments by results. Even with the disruption because of the ‘blitz’, production levels shot up. The allies out produced the axis by bonus schemes (Britain) and conveyor belt production (USA and USSR), rather than slave labour production (Germany and Japan) and corporatism (Italy). For the operation of such bonus systems, the shop stewards were made for the job. They were there to smooth out difficulties, arrange compromises, do deals, and many would then slide over to the Management side by becoming foremen, time and motion experts, and other rabble.

After the war the bonus system was such an essential part of the wage rates, and the incentive to keep production up, that the shop stewards were the official system for smoothing out difficulties and enforcing agreements. The shop stewards role became defined and regulated by national agreements, rule books, and so on. That is why the Government commissioned Donovan Report declared them to be more of a help than a hindrance, a lubricant in the production system. And during bitter disputes they got caught between both sides – snarled at by the bosses, industrial and union, with workers hurling insults, and material objects, at them. That is what usually constitutes an unofficial strike.

The unofficial strike movements reflected the basic economic power of the workers. From time to time the shop stewards either willingly (usually as individual political militants) or unwillingly (to keep their shop stewards positions) played roles in strikes, and were a distorted representation of the economic power of the workers in struggle.

It was only a question of time before the ruling class decided that the shop floor representation system was not able to withstand the determination of workers to be involved in struggles. The change was helped by the Thatcherite union ‘reforms’, which were used as a way of introducing changes allegedly to defend the corporate structure and finances of the unions.

6) Changed role of Shop Stewards / Union Reps – changes in the role of the shop stewards had been on the way in some sectors since the 1970s. Its purpose was to remove the link between the workers at the base and the shop stewards. The stewards would no longer be ‘responsible’ to the workers who voted them in, but to the trade unions who they now represented. Their role would then be to confront the militancy of the workers, rather than to react to it. One of the first to signify this new role was the introduction of shop stewards on the docks as part of decasualisation. The shop stewards were responsible to the unions and not the men. They were there to prevent strikes, not placate the workers. In more and more work places union reps (representatives) replaced the old-style shop stewards. They were nominated by the workers, but bound by the discipline of the union. The previous practice of workers walking out of the workplace, holding a meeting and voting for a strike was now out – the union officials had to be notified of trouble, and issues deferred until discussions with the bosses take place, and then the workers can meet under the heaviest pressure not to strike, or take any other form of action.

It has been the combined weight of recession (high levels of unemployment and the de-industrialisation of whole areas) as well as the changed relationship of shop floor representation which has deadened unofficial actions for the moment. What will replace it is still to be seen. But what is clear is that the ‘eternal optimism’ that the unions could still be changed from within has finally drawn to a close.

Changed Nature of Trade Union Recognition

The new statutory ‘right’ to recognition has two fundamental features: the ’strength’ of trade union membership is no longer a factor (there just has to be a vote), and the negotiations in the bargaining unit is between union officials and bosses, without the need for any votes amongst the workers on the shop floor. With ‘check off’ deduction of union fees by the employer, there will no longer be much need for union branches – in fact as little contact as possible with the workers will be needed. If some workers get sacked (they toddle off down to a Tribunal) others are taken on, and the union fees still get deducted – no problem! No wonder the union bosses are happy and smiling about the new union rights: notice that there is no talk of ‘workers rights’.

The employers are largely happy about the new trade union recognition system. Strikes are unlikely to take place because the unions won’t allow meetings until they can control the situation. The Triumvirate of the state, bosses and unions are combining to ensure that there is no outbreak of that old ‘English disease’, troublesome strikes.

For the workers the final illusions of the usefulness of the union machinery must be coming to an end. At the moment there is a constant procession of individuals looking for solutions for their problems. There isn’t the slightest pretence that their grievances will be addressed. There is at yet no alternative forms emerging.

The sectional, industrial confining of struggles by channelling issues back through the trade union apparatus, such as dealing with issues industry by industry, is no longer a valid perspective for even partially addressing problems. The breaking down of sectional interests, by workers combining as workers, not as employees, in their areas, not by concerns, will be the beginning of the rebirth of (economical) class politics. Class organisation, workers combined as workers, is the need for tomorrow, as of today, as it was needed yesterday. Divisions amongst the workers must be overcome, whether some workers leave the existing unions (if in the future they can do that) and others stay. The form that class organisation takes is not important in itself, but that it begins, consolidates, and extends is the vital issue. If some workers break away from the unions, in order to conduct struggles, then we will defend that right – but not in the sense of defending their isolation from the rest of the workers. The unifying economically of the workers, inside and outside of the existing unions, is the need for today, and for tomorrow. It is the start of the process leading to our emancipation!