Trade Union Bill

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sawyer]

That is not a matter that can be proved. Clearly, those of us who know about employer relations in the industry knew that Bob Crow was a widely respected, sensible and realistic trade union negotiator. The problem was that he was very tough—he drove a tough bargain on behalf of his members. Let us not forget, when we debate manifesto commitments and ballot thresholds, that the balance of power at the workplace, setting aside London and the RMT, is massively loaded in favour of the employer. Trade unions throughout their history have needed to work very hard and make big sacrifices to prosecute their case and get any benefits from taking industrial action. That is the kind of point that the noble Lord, Lord Monks, made—it is about getting some kind of balance. I understand the manifesto commitment and I understand where the Government are coming from, but it is balance that we are looking for in this debate. It is a question of what seems to be fair and reasonable, and the two clauses, both the 50% and 40%, seem a bridge too far.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I shall not detain the Committee for too long, but I want to talk about Clause 3 standing part of the Bill. It illustrates the problem of combining a 50% turnout requirement with a 40% of eligible votes being in favour. Can the Minister confirm whether the figure of 40% was in the Conservative manifesto?

We have had all kinds of figures bandied around; we have had 35%, 20% and 25% as suggested rates, but none of these works. We have had the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, talking about 499 out of a workforce of 1,000 voting for action but unable to make it legitimate because one person did not vote in favour. And if you had just a 50% turnout, 80% would have to vote in favour for industrial action. It is important to have strong support for action if you are going to inconvenience the public, but I do not believe that this is the way, so my party does not believe that Clause 3 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, the fact that there is a manifesto commitment to both 50% and 40% does not release the Government from the responsibility to explain why and to explain the consequences of their action. The manifesto also says:

“We will protect you from disruptive … action”.

If the strikes do pass the test and there is disruptive action, what are the Government going to propose next? A lot of people in this Chamber believe that this is the first step and not the only step; there may be more to come in order to stop disruptive action.

The purpose of our amendments in this group is to highlight and probe the arbitrary nature of the proposed statutory thresholds for industrial action ballots. The potential impact of these will be to make it very difficult for working people to organise collectively in defence of their jobs, livelihoods and working conditions. As my noble friend Lord Sawyer says, the balance is not overwhelmingly weighted in favour of the workers in most parts of the country in most industries. Unions will find it increasingly difficult to organise lawful industrial action, especially in larger workplaces and those with more dispersed workforces.

The recently published impact assessment estimates that the 50% threshold will reduce the number of work stoppages due to industrial action by 37% each year. The Government have also published initial estimates suggesting that the 40% threshold in important public services—we will obviously come on to the debate in the next group about what those important public services are—would lead to an additional eight percentage points reduction in working days lost to industrial action.

It is also unclear why the Government have determined 40% as a threshold. I know it is in the manifesto; I am not querying that. But nowhere in the impact assessment do the Government look at other percentages as a possibility. They have instead stuck to this figure of 40% as the magic number that will mean that industrial powers are sufficiently curbed, meeting their manifesto commitment to,

“protect you from disruptive … action”.

Can the Minister explain and give us the rational argument as to why the figure is 40%?

I want to spend a bit of time tonight talking about what, in the main, unionised workplaces are like. Unionised workplaces tend to be safer. They are more likely to have enhanced family-friendly policies and to invest in skills and training than non-unionised workplaces. And as the Minister knows extremely well, there are unionised places that are well positioned to innovate and respond to changing economic conditions—she has been part of one of the most successful partnership agreements in the country. They work and they deliver because they are focused on ensuring the success of the enterprise, as the noble Lord, Lord King, said. That is what good unions do.

These thresholds will not assist in that process. Modern trade union workplaces do not occur by magic. Ensuring an equal bargaining power between unions and employers is not easily achieved. The ability of unions to organise lawful industrial action provides essential support for effective negotiations. They are part of a rational process to ensure that both sides understand the consequences of their action. People do not go to strike to destroy the enterprise; it is often to protect it, their jobs and their futures.

The majority of ballots do not lead to action. Balloting members ensures that employers take the views of the workplace seriously and engage in genuine negotiations. It is part of the process of reaching agreement. That is what union organisation is about. This week is heartunions week, celebrating the valuable work unions do to improve pay and working conditions. It is in the interests of employers and employees for disputes to be resolved quickly and amicably.

I fear the Government’s proposals mean that disputes are more likely to become protracted. Unions will take more time in the run-up to ballots to ensure the necessary turnout, diverting time and effort away from finding an amicable settlement. Employers may decide to wait and see whether a union can make the strike threshold before making a revised offer. These thresholds are not working towards decent industrial relations. They also increase the potential for legal challenges, which will escalate tensions between employers and the workforce, again making it difficult to resolve a dispute amicably.

The Government’s case is that the 50% turnout threshold, along with the 40% threshold in important public services, are needed to protect the public from disruption. The noble Lord, Lord King, made that case. In order to be effective, industrial action must cause disruption. However, from the current evidence, it is clear that unions are treating industrial action as a matter of last resort.

The evidence is clear: the statistics published by the ONS confirm that the number of days lost to industrial action per year has fallen dramatically. Since 2010, on average 640,000 days have been lost to industrial action each year compared with 7,213,000 days lost per year in the 1980s. In 2014, there were only 155 stoppages as a result of industrial action, with 55% of the stoppages—85 of them—taking place in the private sector and 45% in the public sector. We hear talk of this being a problem for the public sector; the evidence does not back that up. In an economy with more than 30 million people in employment, that is an extremely low level of industrial action. Most industrial action is short lived. In 2014, 64% of all stoppages lasted only one or two days.

Why do people strike? In 2014, 89% of working days lost were due to disputes about pay and pensions. As I said, in the vast majority of cases where unions ballot for industrial action, disputes are settled without the need for strike. In 2014, there were 550 ballots supporting strike action but only 151 stoppages. I fear that this threshold and this intention to curb industrial action are going to exacerbate the situation and will lead to longer negotiations without the push towards a settlement.