Labour Affairs Incorporating the Labour and Trade Union Review No 250 September 2014 Price £2.00 (€ 3.00) The TUC and Social Partnership As we approach the next general election in 2015, quite likely, however, that the current TUC General it is hard to feel optimistic that the Labour Party will Secretary, Frances O’Grady, is at least the third to hold be any bolder than New Labour. Timidity and caution that office who has realised that making British trades appear to rule the day. Policymakers in the party are unions once more a force for the working class interest afraid of challenging major business interests that may needs to involve the unions taking some responsibility disapprove of any mildly radical policy that could con- for the running of the firms in which their members ceivably affect their interest and cause them to locate work and more broadly assuming a role in the run- to a more accommodating regulatory environment ning of the country, in a way that has been part of the abroad. More generally, the ‘business friendly’ attitude political and economic way of life in many European and aversion to any kind of principled stance on issues countries for many decades. However, she is the first affecting working people continues to saturate the at- General Secretary in recent decades who has actually titudes of Labour MPs and policymakers. Yet the last said so and she has made the aspiration a central part five years have seen government by a coalition bent on of her ambitions for her term of office. Her Attlee dismantling key elements of the post-war welfare state. lecture, printed in ‘Labour Affairs’ last year made this They have had considerable success in undermining clear and she and colleagues in the TUC have since universal education and health provision, and have kept continued the work of putting social partnership, and in place ‘socialism for the rich’ in the form of massive industrial democracy in particular, on the agenda of subsidies for failing banks, low-paying employers and union business. rapacious landlords. It is, therefore, hard to see how The leadership of the TUC have evidently concluded there could be much opposition to halt the relentless that there is a choice for the movement between con- march towards an American-style pluto-democracy tinuing irrelevance and decline (which may not be with most services provided by profit-seeking private gradual) and an approach that repositions trades unions companies in a desolate public realm. as doughty defenders of workers’ rights but also as Nowadays the trades unions are hardly taken seri- partners in the running of businesses and advocates ously as an economic, let alone a political force. Years over a range of other issues such as training and edu- of decline and an inability to leave behind a set of cation which were not previously prominent in union attitudes and strategies that made some limited sense campaigning and bargaining. This would no more make in the 1960s and 1970s, but no longer do, sometimes trades unions pushovers at the bargaining table than it make them look irrelevant to the modern political and does for European unions embedded in social partner- economic landscape. However, some re-appraisal has ship structures. It is evident in our published interview been going on for a number of years, even if it has with Frances O’Grady, which is available in this issue only taken place in small parts of the movement. It is of ‘Labour Affairs’, that this orientation is no flash in No 250 September 2014 the pan or fad, but absolutely cen- for keeping the Labour Party afloat. tral to the direction which the TUC Miliband, like Blair, is apparently would like the labour movement to an opponent of those on welfare Labour travel in. Research, scenario plan- benefits doing nothing for what ning and advocacy is being quietly they receive. This should apply to Affairs but persistently carried out in order the Labour Party as well and the to prepare the movement for a new unions should ensure that they get orientation. On the most optimistic ‘something for something’. Contents view, the trade union movement The third issue concerns the op- No.250, Sept. 2014 ISSN 2050-6031 could provide a way of avoiding ISSN 0953-3494 position to social partnership on the the fate of Britain becoming a poor part of the majority of businesses man’s United States. The TUC and Social Partnership and the majority of the Tory party. Editorial 1 However, this is only a beginning This should be the least of Frances and the initiative remains fragile. O’Grady’s worries. They can be There are a number of issues to tackled when the trades unions are INTERVIEW WITH FRANCES address. The first is within the committed to a change of orienta- O’GRADY, TUC GENERAL tion. If the trade unions once again trade union movement itself. The SECRETARY 3 general secretary’s initiative has become a force in the land with the not provoked loud protests but at backing of large sections of the the moment widespread enthusiasm population then they will have to LISTENING TO ITALY amongst union officials and leader- listen and so will the Labour Party. by Orecchiette 16 ships is hard to detect. A lot more At the moment they can point to the will need to be done to get them irrelevance of organised labour to signed up, let alone work enthusi- the running of the economy because astically for it. It is very easy to nod there is at least a grain of truth in in acquiescence and then to make their claim. sure that nothing gets done. This The Labour Party will not listen Regular Features work is only just beginning and the if the major trades unions do not outcome remains uncertain. support the approach adopted by Views from across The second issue concerns the the current general secretary. She the Channel Labour Party, which has shown has shown the courage of her con- by Froggy 9 little enthusiasm for industrial de- victions and has a clear view of the mocracy and which has shied away direction that British unionism has Notes on the News 11 from a broader social partnership to take. She deserves the support Gwydion M. Williams approach ever since the 1970s. of everyone interested in making However, it has recently commit- sure that Britain remains a civilised Parliament Notes ted itself to employees having a place in which to live and work. Dick Barry 17 say on remuneration committees and this may well involve it taking It's A Fact 24 on more commitments to indus- trial democracy than it currently Labour Affairs realises. The Labour Party is also Published by the Ernest Bevin Society We apologise for Editorial Board largely financed by the trade union Dick Barry Christopher Winch movement. There is ample scope the late appearance Jack Lane Madawc Williams for pressurising the party to adopt [email protected] a more robust social partnership ap- of this issue. proach as a condition for continuing Distribution support in a new and more benign Dave Fennell Technical hitches. Editorial Address version of performance related pay No. 2 Newington Green Mansions where the paymasters (the unions) Green Lanes get something worthwhile in return London N16 9BT Labour Affairs 2 No 250 September 2014 INTERVIEW WITH FRANCES O’GRADY, TUC GENERAL SECRETARY CONDUCTED BY MARK LANGHAMMER AND CHRIS WINCH, 26TH AUGUST 2014. The conversation starts with ML I, and an increasing number of unionism’. Looking ahead, the inviting FO’G to talk about the economists, buy the thesis that the task is to think bigger and come publications that the TUC has worse inequality gets, the greater up with some quite ambitious recently produced about industrial the chance that we’ll get another thinking, not just about how our democracy. crash, only next time it will be day to day work as trade unionists FO’G bigger and quicker. could be transformed, but what Very often when you have a ML contribution we could make to conversation about workers’ voice, The whole thing as you say, with transforming the country. somehow you always end up In Place of Strife and even Heath CW going back to Bullock or In Place and Bullock and attempts further That makes a great deal of of Strife. Today, we are actually in back in 1946-47 with Bevin sense to us in terms of our own a very different environment, not asking the TUC to take a role in understanding of Jack Jones’ just in terms of union membership, running national insurance, is what importance. union density, industrial relations ‘traction’ is there in the movement, FO’G and so on, but we are also trying to and in society today, and are I’m a big admirer of Jack and crack a different problem. Now we we as a movement incorrigibly he was a very creative thinker. know the shareholder supremacy adversarial or is there some sense Telling the story in terms of his model is completely bust. The of fight about let’s help run this vision can appeal to people, some counter-argument to Bullock – that thing or shape this thing… ? of whom otherwise would have shareholders own the company FO’G been instinctively suspicious. and they are therefore the best Yes, I think that there are clearly The left has had to reflect on its stewards of its long-term interests key constituencies that we have own history and realise that there – has been left completely exposed to influence and bring on board.