Lord Collins of Highbury
Main Page: Lord Collins of Highbury (Labour - Life peer)
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, I support the amendments and in particular Amendment 21. In my working career there has been a huge improvement in achieving a democratic mandate for strike action. The House has made the point that strikes are an action of last resort and it is important that whatever mandate is achieved for that strike should have the biggest and most representative turnouts.
If your Lordships look at the ballots and strikes that we have had in recent years—they have decreased in number, which is good—you will see that about 50% have already been achieving 50% turnouts. There has been a huge improvement in the way in which the ballots are conducted, certainly compared with the experience that the noble Lord, Lord King, talked about. We know that a very important social development took place at that time. There was a reaction against the intimidation of the factory gate meetings, but also in unions themselves a big change was going on because people were not attending branch meetings. As a result, those unions that depended on branch meetings to determine strike action were not fully representative.
I remember as a young graduate working for Sid Weighell in the National Union of Railwaymen going along to the No. 1 Euston branch of the NUR on the eve of a one-day strike, which was an action against the Conservative Government’s plans for transport at the time. It was remarkable—there was a room for 50 people, but there were 200 people queuing outside to come in. The branch secretary who was presiding was in a fluster and very bad tempered as to why all these people were suddenly turning up for a branch meeting when they had never come before. The following day, there was an action and Sid Weighell sent me there to find out how representative the feeling was in the union. Clearly, the reason people were turning up was because they did not want the one-day strike to continue.
Anyway, we then introduced postal ballots. We have had long experience that they are secure. We have good experience of them. Fundamentally, they have independent scrutineers to ensure that they are fair and representative, and we have 25 or 30 years’ experience of them. However, there is one problem—that the turnout in postal ballots is still not as high as we would like. If we have this threshold, trade unions will have to work harder to get the turnout up, and they will. They will be able to do second mailings and will use all sorts of means to encourage turnout and make sure that people vote in these important ballots. As we know is the case in general elections, people do not vote when they think that the outcome is predictable but they do vote when it is close, and the unions will be able to get this turnout. I am sure that they will use things such as second mailings and emails to get the turnout up.
The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, was right to say that in the other place the Minister said that he was not convinced about the practicality—he used the Speaker’s commission for that. However, that is unrealistic, because the numbers involved in national elections are vast compared with the numbers in ballots for this sort of strike. Therefore, we need to look at the idea of extending the different ways of voting and it is right that we should also now look at workplace balloting. If there are independent scrutineers, there is no reason why that should not be secure as well. There has been quite a social change. People are willing to use emails and digitisation to vote, and organisations are already doing that. That will help the turnout.
I do not think that we should consider putting a burden on the unions to get turnout up if we do not help them to do it. That seems to be a fundamental principle, and it will have a benefit. My experience is limited but I am sure that unions already use email addresses. If they go in for electronic voting, they will have to extend email use, and that will improve communication and turnout.
The CAC is already using a variety of methods to test people’s views on recognition, as has been mentioned in this debate. It deals with very sensitive issues. As those experienced in union processes will know, recognition is one of the most bitterly contested issues because employers are sometimes concerned to stop it and the unions are determined to get it. So these are very sensitive ballots and the CAC now has experience of using not just postal ballots but workplace ballots and electronic voting. Therefore, we support the changes proposed in the amendments.
In ending my remarks, I have three questions for the Minister. First, have the Government and Ministers had conversations with the Central Arbitration Committee about the processes used to improve turnout in ballots? Secondly, do the Government not think that the whole digitisation strategy means that, in all sorts of processes, electronic voting is the next stage in extending the voting process in all sorts of organisations? My final question, which is an abrupt one, is: is the Conservative Party satisfied that it had a fair election for its mayoral candidate in London when it used the sorts of processes advocated in these amendments?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, the first question for me is: will minimum thresholds for industrial action ballots improve democracy in the workplace? If postal voting remains the only option available to trade unions wishing to ballot their members, the answer must be no, and that is because, putting aside the question of whether the introduction of statutory thresholds is desirable, it is in the interests of trade unions and employers for a ballot properly to reflect the opinions of workers. I appreciate and thank—
A noble Lord
Lord Collins of Highbury
No. I was thinking of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and trying to think of the correct term for the legal profession—but in fact I do not need to do that. I hate breaching protocol. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, makes a very valid point in this debate: whatever our opinions of thresholds—and this is where the Government will, I hope, think hard about what the noble Lord said—it will undermine the Government’s position, if there is a legal challenge, by denying the opportunity for unions to ensure that there is a full turnout in the vote. So it is incumbent on the Government, in my opinion, to think hard about whether they can push through thresholds without allowing unions to consider other secure methods of voting.
Lord Collins of Highbury
I am not keen to stop the flow here, but does the noble Baroness not recognise that the CAC does have experience of workplace ballots, statutory recognition ballots? They are not a minor matter for those balloting or, for that matter, the companies subject to those ballots. Does she feel that those are somehow insecure or not valid because they are conducted in the workplace, overseen by the CAC?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
That is a different matter. To respond to the question that was asked, we are in fact in contact with the CAC, but to bring in electronic balloting, as I have said, you need to be clear that the matter is extremely carefully addressed. A key area is to ensure that the electronic system correctly establishes an individual’s eligibility to vote. It has to capture the vote accurately while at the same time protecting the individual from being identified. The system needs—and I think there will be a lot of agreement on these points—to be both anonymous, to preserve individual privacy and secrecy, and accountable, to guard against malpractice and fraud.