Trade Union Bill

Debate between Lord Stoneham of Droxford and Lord Balfe

Thursday 25th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

My Lords, I am fearful of keeping noble Lords from their lunch, but I have several points that have not already been made in the debate. I agree absolutely with what the noble Lords, Lord Balfe and Lord Kerslake, said about how the Bill, particularly this clause, is designed principally to make life difficult for the unions. It is not about modernising industrial relations.

I challenge the Minister to explain some of the statements made in the impact assessment. It is extraordinary that it states:

“Removing the check off provision is not expected to have a negative impact on industrial relations”—

we have heard arguments to the contrary in this debate. It also states:

“The impact of transition on the trade unions will be minimal”.

How can that be? It further states that:

“We assume that the amount of time taken to become familiar with the proposals will be small as changes introduced in the Bill are straightforward”.

We have heard in the debate that these are complex and difficult procedures that the unions will be inveigled into if the proposals are passed.

I accept that we have moved on a long way from when union dues were collected in cash. I remember in the sector in which I worked, staff had for years been paid in cash and the father of chapel used to go around collecting dues regularly. The only problem was that he was also acting as a bookie’s runner in the plant, so the union was very grateful when the management agreed to accept check-off.

We have moved on from that, but we want union representatives to concentrate on improving industrial relations. We know that, whatever happens, there will be a huge muddle and administrative problem. No one has mentioned that we now have ballots for strikes and industrial action. The complication of not having agreed lists of who can vote in those ballots will be much more difficult in the public sector without check-off. No one has mentioned that there is a huge problem with people not cancelling direct debits when, in this case, they move jobs to different sectors and may even need to join another union. We know that those direct debits are often not cancelled.

[Lord Balfe]

My Lords, I point out that Baroness Williams, who has just departed from us, continued to pay dues to the Labour Party for 10 years after she had joined the Social Democratic Party, because she failed to cancel her direct debit?

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

I think it needs such sources of money at the moment.

Another issue that has not been raised is that a good employer wants representative unions. As someone who has been involved as a manager—I know that the unions may be suspicious of this—I liked to know who was in the union, because I wanted to know how representative the leadership of the union was in negotiations, how serious they were and how I should respond to them. That is an important point.

Another point that the Conservatives have overlooked is that, if you get unions down to a core so that they are unrepresentative, you will face very difficult decisions. I always remember Vic Feather saying, “I always look to the faces of the people at the back of a room, not the voices of the activists at the front”. If you want representative unions, you want the highest number of your employees to be members of that union. Not to upset my Labour friends, but if you go down this route, you will be handing the trade unions to the Corbynites, the less representative groups. You will have more trouble in the trade unions as a result, particularly in the public sector, than if you recognise that the rank and file—the people involved in high-turnover sectors, the cleaners—have good judgment when they have to face the decision whether to lose wages and take industrial action. Those people provide the solid support for trade unions, and you should be encouraging them. If you do not, you will end up with worse industrial relations.

I support Amendment 92. It is a good way forward, and the Government should look carefully at it. The amendments of the noble Lords, Lord Kerslake and Lord Balfe, help in the debate. We must address the fact that, once again, the Government speak devolution and then do absolutely the opposite—as in local government. The Bill, and these provisions, do not help us to modernise industrial relations.

Trade Union Bill

Debate between Lord Stoneham of Droxford and Lord Balfe

Monday 8th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, it is a very serious issue when you diminish somebody’s right to withdraw their labour. Therefore, it must be very exceptional. Normally it would be good industrial-relations practice, when you are doing this, to offer those employees some protection in return. There is nothing on the agenda today that suggests that, or even that the Government are thinking about it.

There are a number of unintended consequences to all these measures as well. I shall mention two. I always think of the syndrome of the winding-engine men in the coal industry—a key group who used to control who went down and came up in the mine. If you start having thresholds, you will encourage small, strategic groups who will organise to go on strike and can cause massive disruption. I always think that the winding-engine men could be the signal. It could be other groups. That is an unintended consequence.

There is another consequence of this sort of thing, which I thought about in the last debate. Do you remember what the New York governor said about politicians?

“You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose”.

This is what we are doing with industrial relations. We are actually encouraging trade unionists to spend all their time getting the votes over the thresholds so that they can put pressure on their employers. It underestimates the difficulty and the time that trade unionists actually give to trying to minimise disruption. That is what trade union leaders do—they know these disputes are unpopular. That is why there is a trend for one-day disputes rather than longer ones. They are trying to manage this in very difficult circumstances. If you encourage them to have to spend their time campaigning to get the votes over the threshold, they will not be able to control those emotions or get the people back to work.

This is precisely what has happened in the junior hospital doctors dispute. How do you get people back when 76% of them have voted, and 99% are in favour? I said this several weeks ago, and we are no nearer a settlement. This is the sort of unintended consequence that we have.

That is why in Amendment 18 we are saying that the Ministers’ powers must be very restricted here. They cannot just come along as soon as there is a dispute in some area and add that to a list. This will form the worst sort of legislation, and it will have the worst consequences. I do not know where the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, is tonight, but I thought we were going to have amendments in the next group telling us how we are going to widen these groups, so virtually any group in the public sector can be included. I imagine he has been told to go home, unless he is going to come back from the dead and propose these motions tonight. That is precisely the sort of thing we are worried about in this legislation.

This is just the first step. This is the agenda. This is the agenda of this Government: a partisan agenda which will be disruptive of industrial relations in this country and will have completely the opposite consequences to those they are trying to reassure the public they are going to provide for them.

[Lord Balfe]

My Lords, I will ask the Minister a question. I believe we are going to have tremendous difficulties defining,

“education of those aged under 17”.

Not only do you have differences in who the teachers are teaching, but also head teachers can preside over schools of different age spans. Will the Minister give some careful thought, between now and our next looking at the Bill, to how the clause can be better defined? I do not think that it works as it is.