Trade Union Bill

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and declare that I, too, am a member of Unite the union and the GMB. I am also the daughter and grandaughter of two trade unionists. I am very well aware that I stand on the shoulders of giants from the generations that have gone before me and fought for my rights in the workplace—the rights for a weekend, for maternity pay and for sick pay. Those rights make workers more productive and happy. If those on the Government Benches are serious about protecting and growing our economy, they would take trade unions seriously as a partner and strengthen their rights, not remove them.

I am interested in seeing improvements to trade union rights in this country. Many colleagues have mentioned e-balloting. If we want more people to participate in a ballot, we should make it easier for them to do so.

The thresholds proposed in the Bill are a hypocrisy. Why should we apply a higher standard to working people who wish to organise unions in this country than we apply to ourselves? I would not be serving in this House today if I had been expected to meet the thresholds that have been proposed for our trade unions. It is an attack on civil liberties. As has been mentioned, article 11 of the European convention on human rights states:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association, including the right to form and join trade unions”—

for the protection of their interests. This Bill puts a restriction on people’s rights, and I note that the briefing note sent to MPs from Liberty supports that view.

I wish to move now to a subject that has not been covered quite so much today. It is a sorry state of affairs that the Government cannot see the huge economic benefits of trade union membership and strong trade unions. Looking at the relationship between two major economic trends since the 1970s, namely declining union membership and a shrinking share of wages and salaries in national income, it becomes clear that the UK has paid a heavy economic price for years of labour market deregulation and anti-union policies. The UK is wages-led: it is wages, not profits, that drive growth in our economy. If profit shares go up, as has been the case for the past four decades, demand actually decreases. A 1% increase in the profit share leads to a 0.13% decrease in demand, which is a loss of £2.21 billion to the economy at today’s levels.

The role of trade unions in ensuring a successful economy must be recognised if the damaging decline in the portion of national income going to wages is to be reversed. It is for that reason that I will oppose this Bill this evening, and I urge Government Members to do the same.