Trade Union Bill (First sitting)

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I have a few preliminary points. Welcome to this Bill Committee. Today, we will consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. We will then consider a motion to allow us to deliberate in private about our questions before the oral evidence sessions. We will then have a motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication. Please turn off your mobile phones. Banned substances such as tea and coffee are not allowed. I am sure that, in view of the time available, we can take these early motions without debate. As we are now sitting in a public session, it might be a good point for anyone who wishes to make a declaration of interest to do so now.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

I declare my membership of Unison and my trade union activity over the past 20 years as a trade union activist prior to my election.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

I declare my membership of Unite the union and my trade union membership and representation as a senior rep over the past 14 years.

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[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Q 6 It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. The Bill has already been described by Mr Doughty as “draconian”. Can you give me your impression of how much this is a fundamental change to the way that trade unions operate and how much you think it is more of a step-by-step increase in the modernisation of the trade union movement?

John Cridland: I echo Mr Martin’s comment about a failsafe. In most workplaces, relations are harmonious. Most workplaces are now not unionised, but in the unionised part of workplaces, most relationships are harmonious, and employers recognise that. There is a small minority of situations, which we have already described, where many people—businesses and consumers —are significantly disrupted. If that is to happen, and if the right to strike is to be exercised, I think it is reasonable, given the level of disruption involved, that there is clear evidence of a significant mandate. That is a modernisation of a system that is broadly working well.

Dr Adam Marshall: I would probably agree with my colleague and simply add that having an expiry for ballot mandates is an important thing in this day and age, given that we are in a more complex world for both business and industrial relations than perhaps ever before. Having a clear mandate renewed on a regular basis is very important.

David Martin: I again echo the comments. I can only refer to what I said earlier—that in the event of a breakdown in industrial relations, which does not happen very often, let us have a very clear mandate that reflects the wishes of the membership as a whole, and let us have a situation where we can minimise the overall impact on the travelling public and the UK economy at the same time.

[Chris Stephens]

Q 7 It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. My question is for the CBI. First, I was a bit unclear in your answer to my colleague about secure workplace balloting. You have said that trade union recognition ballots work well, but in trade union recognition ballots there is scope for secure workplace balloting. Can you clarify that?

Secondly, in your submission, you say that you are looking to extend the notice periods from seven days to 14 days on either side. That is 28 days in total, even without a ballot period. Do you not think that seven days’ notice to ballot and seven days’ notice to strike, with a period in between of at least 14 working days, is sufficient for a business to look at what they need to do and the steps that need to take place for disruption and any industrial action?

John Cridland: Thank you for the question. On your first point, the analogy I was using for trade union recognition was with ballot majorities. That is a relevant point, I think, about the ballot majorities and thresholds that the Government are proposing for the Bill. The current notice periods are inadequate. Many corporate members of the CBI faced with these situations simply do not feel that they have enough time to provide information and to put in place mitigating measures. I think the business community does want to see longer notice periods.

[Chris Stephens]

Q 8 Part of the difficulty, though, is that the notice for compulsory redundancy is now 45 days. The danger of the Bill—I am curious to hear your views on this—is that trade unions will have to ballot right away when an employer issues a statutory redundancy notice, because it is now 45 days. Given the timescale, does it not worry you that there will actually be more balloting, rather than less?

John Cridland: For employers, we are trying to get the principle of clear consent. If a trade union and its members are going to withdraw their labour, which is clearly their right, we want to see evidence of consent in those situations. The difficulty with the current legislation is that it can leave employers faced with a situation where there is a low turnout—we have already heard the situation that Dr Marshall described of a ballot, prior to a situation where the ballot was some period before. These are not giving clear signals to the employer. So the spirit of our evidence is, “Can we have a system that both in time and in signalling makes it much clearer to the employers the nature of the dispute, and allows the employer to deal with that?” That is what we are after.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Q 9It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. Dr Marshall, you raised the point about productivity, and I just want to ask about some of the wider economic impact of the Bill, if it is passed—in particular, the impact on investment, including inward investment, and on making the UK an attractive place to invest, and perhaps, Mr Martin, in terms of your industry, on whether having greater confidence about industrial relations will enable you to have stronger management and therefore attract more investment into it.

Dr Adam Marshall: Many thanks for the question. Undoubtedly, businesses that believe that the framework for industrial relations is modern and secure will be more confident when it becomes time to invest, particularly in those industries, such as the one represented by Mr Martin, that are affected by some of the enhanced thresholds that this Bill puts in place.

We have been very supportive of the definition of which areas should fall under those enhanced thresholds, in part because those businesses are extremely capital-intensive and do things that are extremely important to the functioning of the broader business community. So whether we are talking about transport, the delivery of energy supplies and indeed—vis-à-vis the supply of future skills—whether we are talking about the education sector, these are things that have a huge knock-on effect on the rest of the economy. So we believe that these measures are proportionate to help with that particular challenge.

Vis-à-vis our attractiveness to overseas businesses, one only needs to look at the media impact of transport strikes in London—how they are reported—and what you see are the knock-on effects on the economy of this particular area, and of course we have seen that played out in other cities as well, right across the UK. That has a deterrent effect on would-be investors, and I think that we would see that deterrent effect being lessened with a modernised system.

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[The Chair]

Okay. We have a long list of questions. You are warming up your audience, gentlemen, so we will be as brisk as we can.

[Chris Stephens]

Q 58 Gentlemen, both of you have extensive trade union experience. In your experience, what factors lead to low turnouts when it comes to ballots? Do you support the modernisation of the ballot process—for example, secure workplace balloting? Do you think that it is going to be more difficult to obtain industrial action on issues where there are now 45-day notices of changes to terms and conditions and voluntary redundancy? Lastly, do you think that the picket proposals will lead to more blacklisting?

Roy Rickhuss: There are a lot of questions in one there and it is difficult to answer. I am not sure why there are low turnouts in ballots. We do not experience that. In our union, we recently had a ballot on a pensions issue in one of our traditional industries and we had a well over 75% turnout. I think one issue is the way ballots are currently run. There are already significant, onerous conditions on trade unions in terms of balloting.

One issue in our response to the Bill has been the use of modern technology and electronic balloting. For the life of me, I just cannot understand why there would be any objections to that sensible move forward. I have seen some commentary saying, “Well, it’s not safe and secure.” That is so ridiculous, in fairness. You have to realise that people are not stupid; they do everything online these days. You can do all your banking, you can sign legal documents—you can do everything possible online. To suggest that you cannot vote in a ballot because it is not safe and secure undermines the whole principle of the debate. I think if we had a sensible debate about how ballots are conducted, we might make some serious progress.

Blacklisting is not an issue that my union has experienced significantly. Other unions, predominantly in the building and construction industry, obviously have major concerns about that, so yes, I would imagine that for some unions, it would be a serious concern.

John Hannett: A union like USDAW organises completely in the private sector. We operate in sectors that operate 24/7, seven days a week. My experience when I was particularly active as a union representative was that we had workplace arrangements whereby you could ballot. That used to enable people to go and vote. Of course, the world has changed and it is difficult to facilitate that kind of arrangement, but in terms of the technology, we know that the number of members who join online and who are communicating with the union online is increasing on a regular basis, so the idea of providing a new form of voting is, I think, a sensible one. Like Roy, I have heard nothing that persuades me it could not be done.

The other thing is the industrial relations side that you are picking up. We have a big productivity challenge in the UK. Everybody understands that. What I fear with many of these issues, including the argument about making it harder to run these events, is actually going the other way. So if you are really serious about turnout, you would consider electronic balloting. And in terms of engineering and encouraging good industrial relations, it is not about control mechanisms; it is about engagement, partnership and talking. In fact, if anything, I think this makes it harder for the employers, because this is seen more as controlling mechanisms than constructive relationships. I think it will have a negative impact.

[The Chair]

I still have seven people who want to ask questions, so from now on we will have one question and one brisk answer, if you do not mind.

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[Rishi Sunak]

Q 84 This is the basic issue of fairness—of people’s contributions being taken without their active consent at the time of membership. We heard in earlier evidence that some unions support that but it is very much not the widespread practice among all unions to provide that information to their members. If you support transparency, it is clear today that that transparency does not exist across the entire board.

Stephen Cavalier: It is a legal requirement to tell members that they have the right to opt out of the political fund. If they wish to, they do so.

[Chris Stephens]

Q 85 I have several questions. First, do you agree that there is a danger in introducing thresholds—the impact that it will have on some gender equality issues, for example? Shift changes impact workers trying to pursue equal pay issues and the like. Secondly, is there a new danger of public bodies having to reissue new, individual contracts on the basis of opportunities to check-off and those sorts of issues? Do you see any impact on the devolved Administrations given that your organisation has offices across the UK?

Stephen Cavalier: First, on the equality point, the TUC has already submitted evidence. There is a disproportionate impact of thresholds on women workers; it is absolutely clear that there is a discriminatory impact. On the question of check-off and facility time, we are also a large employer. We have check-off and facility time and we are pleased to do so. It is something that we have agreed with our workforce and it works very well for us. I very much endorse the comments made in a 2012 paper by called “Stop the Union-Bashing” by Robert Halfon MP, who says that Whitehall should not dictate to employers and that it should be a matter for employers to agree facility time. I commend that paper to the Committee. It is certainly right that employers should agree facility time and check-off. It is a matter for them.

There are serious issues here associated with the devolved Administrations. As I understand it, they have the right to determine these arrangements within their own spheres. This does cut across that, and it does so in a very negative way. It is very concerning that the impact assessment itself—in fact, I think the European convention assessment that the Government have produced says specifically that this removal of existing contractual arrangements and collective agreements may have retrospective effect. That is a serious potential breach of article 1, protocol 1 of the European convention.

[James Cartlidge]

Q 86 Thank you both for coming. You have both spoken about thresholds and their potential impact, but neither of you seem to have focused on the key point that matters to the country at large, which is that it is so unfair to our commuters, our parents and so on that their public services can be brought down for days on low turnouts. We heard earlier from Arriva that on a 17% ballot, 50% of their buses were out for a day, causing massive disruption to its passengers. Do you not accept, in principle, that it is right to deal with that?

Mike Emmott: Our view is that although it is conceivable that the increased threshold will influence the outcome in some cases, it is quite unclear whether it is going to make striking more or less likely. There are lots of way of causing problems. We do not have a view on whether or not the thresholds are right in principle. We simply take the view that they are just as likely to cause more trouble as they are to reduce it.