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Workers’ Rights, not Union Rights

My prescription for the Labour Party would shift its centre-of-gravity away, slightly but perceptibly, from its TU origins, as matters both of policy and procedure.  This line disturbed one of my readers Matthew Jenkins, a 26-year-old young Fabian and Labour Party activist, working in Cardiff.  He challenged me -

Dear Roger

I've been pondering your piece Where should Labour take its stand? and in particular your approach to the trade union movement. Workers clearly have a range of rights and it seems to me that those rights are
best enforced where trade unions are strong.  If you take the example of
health and safety in the workplace, unionised workplaces have a far better
record.  And TUs rely on this spirit of collectivism for their very
existence.  To my mind, it is by way of collective action that individual rights are enforced, and protected.  Were the value of that to be
questioned in any way, TUs' position would be undermined.  Yet you seem to be downplaying this role.  Maybe I misunderstand your view on this?

That said, I think there is merit in what you say.  The British trade union movement have taken a bit of a kicking over the last 20-odd years.  It is only now that membership levels are beginning to stabilise, but there are real structural problems that the trade union movement will have to address if it is to survive, let alone grow.  The movement has totally failed to get to grips with changes in the structure of British industry.  They have failed to
penetrate the new industries that emerged through the 1990s, whilst at the
same time the contraction of primary and manufacturing industry has hit them hard. 

It must therefore be questioned whether TUs are an effective vehicle for championing workers rights in the 21st century - because these trends seem set to continue.  It may be that a greater focus on individual rights, understood by workers and employers across all of industry, might be more effective in providing protection for workers.

Dear Matthew

We must also develop a wider concept of “workplace representation”. I say that it should be an individual worker’s right to choose whatever representative he/she wishes, in the resolution of any workplace issue – sadly, when that principle was included in New Labour’s initial Employment Bill (1998), the Trade Unions opposed it, insisting that the only permissible representative was either (a) a fellow employee at the same plant or (b) a TU representative.  That was wrong, yet it is the present law.  I want to go back, and create a universal right of representation – by friend or family, or professional representative – the Unions would be best-placed to “secure that work”, but they would have to compete for it!  Such a rule would be a great recruiting-sergeant for the Unions, and they were wrong to reject it, in 1998.

Finally, I am keenly aware of the distinctive legal disadvantages faced by trade unions under UK law (which we must continue to contest) - I explained the full legal background to that, way back in July 2002.  But I am nevertheless nervous about the TUC's emphasis on union rights (i.e. rather than worker’s rights) – matters of “Union recognition”, workplace meeting-rights, collection of Union dues – these are in my view secondary issues, not primary matters of the protection of the entire workforce against the abuse of power by employers.

My judgment is that – now we have got where we are, historically – there are greater political dividends to be gained from “workers’ rights” than from “union rights” – and that these perceptions should be carried through into the reform of the Labour Party’s own Constitution, where I find that I have become even more radical, in the search for a new and worthwhile role for Party Members – check out It's my Party..

Roger WE

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Matt