Draft Important Public Services (Education) Regulations 2017 Draft Important Public Services (Transport) Regulations 2017

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 General Committees

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans.

As the Minister has outlined, the Trade Union Act 2016 introduced a requirement that at least 50% of eligible union members must vote in an industrial action ballot for it to be lawful. In addition, union members in sectors that the Government define as providing important public services will be subject to the requirement that any ballot for industrial action must achieve a 40% threshold of support. Today we consider the transport and education sectors.

The Government have continually sought to argue that their proposals in the Trade Union Act will increase democracy and widen participation, but their neglect of electronic voting and insistence on outmoded processes reveal that as a smokescreen for an ideological attack on working people and trade unions. It is alarming that such an important and controversial component of the Trade Union Act is being determined by secondary legislation, resulting in a more limited opportunity for Parliament to scrutinise and debate provisions that are likely to undermine the right to strike for millions of UK citizens.

Trade unions are a force for good and for equality in our society, particularly in an increasingly insecure world of work. Labour remains fundamentally opposed to additional restrictions on industrial action that will limit the rights of millions of ordinary working people to strike.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that if a trade union cannot get 50% of its members out to vote in a ballot, with 40% in support, it cannot really have a very good cause and therefore that the public should not be inconvenienced and workers should not be deprived of the right to work?

[Gill Furniss]

It is up to the management negotiating with trade unions to prevent strikes from happening. This legislation will be more acrimonious and will let the hon. Gentleman’s Government off the hook when it comes to strikes.

[Chris Stephens]

Given that only postal votes can be used, is it not difficult for trade unions running industrial action ballots by post that the number of post boxes in the UK has reduced sharply in the past five years?

[Gill Furniss]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. We see with the closure of many post offices how the Government’s policy affects all walks of life.

The Government have also strived to give the appearance of a democratic process in the formulation of the Act and the associated regulations. The consultation on ballot thresholds in important public services received 205 responses from a variety of sources. As I will outline, those responses by no means gave a green light to the Government’s ideas, either on the definition of important public services, or on the restrictions on the ability to carry out proposed strike action.

These regulations must be seen within the wider context. They are part of a slew of regulations that limit trade unions. I thank the Government for listening to reason on the transition period before the rule change for political funds and await their new proposal. I welcome their changes to the initial proposals on the inclusion of ancillary workers in these categories, but make no mistake, the Act is an unnecessary, unjustified and disproportionate restriction on the right to strike for millions of working people.

Strike action in the UK is already at an all-time low. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that 2015 had the second lowest annual total of days lost due to strike action since records began in 1891. What is more, the mechanisms already in place in the UK to deter or avoid strike action mean that most disputes are settled without strikes. There are more than four times as many strike ballots than there are actual stoppages. As Cathy Warwick, chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives, wrote shortly after the college’s first ever strike since its foundation in 1881,

“women needing urgent and emergency maternity care were getting it because midwives had sat down with management in advance of the day to ensure that a safe service would still be running, staffed by midwives, regardless of the strike.”

Unions are always careful in taking industrial action to offer essential cover and never to put at risk life and limb.

Asking members to take industrial action is always a matter of last resort. The priority for unions is to improve mechanisms for dispute resolution and is evidenced by the TUC initiative in the Southern rail dispute. The Government are pushing an image of trade unions as selfish organisations that threaten public safety, but that could not be further from the truth. Not only are new laws and regulations on strike action unnecessary, but they threaten to aggravate and unsettle the industrial relations we have in this country. The new laws set an unrealistic benchmark for industrial action, undermining the right to strike for many public sector workers. For example, in the sectors covered by the draft regulations, in a ballot where 50% of members take part, unions will need an 80% vote in favour before any strike action can go ahead. This is an unacceptably high threshold.

It is in the interests of workers, employees and the public for disputes to be resolved quickly and amicably. However, the new restrictions will undermine constructive employment relations in the UK, by forcing unions to put more effort into driving up ballot turnout and less into amicable settlements. The British Institute of Human Rights, Liberty and Amnesty International UK said of the then Trade Union Bill, now the Act:

“The government’s plans to significantly restrict trade union rights—set out in the Trade Union Bill—represent a major attack on civil liberties in the UK.”

The right to strike is protected by a number of international and European provisions, including the International Labour Organisation convention 87, the European social charter and the European convention on human rights.

The ILO defines essential services as those the disruption of which would endanger lives. In their response to the Department Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy consultation, Tonia Novitz, Alan Boggs and Ruth Dukes, professors of labour law at the universities of Bristol, Oxford and Glasgow respectively, said:

“Many of the government’s proposed ‘important’ services do not fall under this definition (for instance, education and transport).

We are concerned that the drafters of the Bill have introduced a term, ‘important public services’, which has no precedent under international or British law. This does not accord with the UK’s treaty obligations under the ILO Constitution or Conventions and is inconsistent with the established ILO jurisprudence regarding treatment of ‘essential services’.”

The Government have sought to defend the 40% threshold by citing decisions of the European Court of Human Rights that relate to cases from France and Spain, but those cases deal with the restrictions on the rights of police officers and military personnel. They do not justify restrictions on strike action by public sector transport workers or teachers.

On education, I note that the National Union of Teachers said in its consultation response:

“The ILO Labour Relations (Public Service) Convention 151 also provides that public servants must enjoy the same political and civil rights as other employees. The NUT would argue that any interference with this right must be fully justified and that the Government has failed, as yet, to provide any such justification.”

I have heard nothing from the Minister to convince me that the Government have provided any such justification for why teachers, as public servants, should have their political and civil rights in the form of their ability to organise strike action hampered in this way compared with other workers.

The Government seem to ignore the fact that strike action by teachers often carries significant sympathies from parents, who recognise that adequate conditions for teachers and a good teaching environment are in the interests of their children. It should not escape anyone’s notice that fee-paying schools are exempt from the regulations, as they are not public services. The regulations will ensure that public sector school workers have less capacity to strike than those working in schools that charge fees. The right to strike is a fundamental human right that should be applied equally to all workers.

In the consultation responses on education, 47% of respondents disagreed with the proposed list of bodies and workers. Although that contained a mixture of views, only 17% were in agreement. Some respondents felt that strike action in education services poses no significant risk to the public. Evidently, the Government disagree, but unless they can put forward a coherent case, we should go no further with the regulations.

As for transport services, out of 119 responses, 23% agreed and 38% disagreed with the proposed list, with respondents feeling that strike action in transport services was unlikely to pose risks to the public. The Prime Minister talks of the Tories as the party of the working class, yet in a country where trade unions are already heavily regulated, she wants further restrictions to rob workers of their right to take industrial action, leaving workers badly treated and essentially powerless. For all the reasons given, I cannot support the regulations and will press them to a Division.