Trade Union Bill

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, I began my interest in trade unions as a student of engineering when I was at Cambridge University. I spent my vacations in various factories and on building sites, and I began to see that unless management and workers could collaborate, we were never going to develop our industry as well as we should.

I had other experiences of being a member of a trade union when I worked for the Central Electricity Generating Board. I was so impressed with the trade union that I then became branch secretary. Later, I realised that trade unions were extremely important for management. On my first or second day as head of the Met Office, I talked to the trade unions and learned a great many things that I had not learned from other people. One of the extraordinary things about being both a staff member and a trade union person in an organisation is that you see a cross-section of the organisation.

The Minister mentioned some positive aspects of trade unions when she introduced the Bill. She also said—I think she is right—that some elements of the Bill are useful, with a move towards greater openness and more information. However, as we have heard in this debate from the opposite side, the general spirit is not as constructive as one would like to think in trying to move this country forward from a spirit of division and inequality to the kind of modern country that one sees in Germany. Of course, it was the UK after the Second World War that encouraged Germany to have a trade union role on the supervisory boards of companies, but we debated the Bullock report in the Lords and regrettably the conclusion was that we were perhaps too divided to have the same kind of approach as in Germany. In the UK, public and private bodies have ad hoc roles for union involvement that relate to pay, welfare, safety and the functioning of the organisation, but they do not have the same strategic role as in Germany.

Paragraph 54 of the Explanatory Notes is explicit that the proposals to reduce the time spent by trade union officials in running public bodies will lead to some reduction in cost, and various very small numbers have been mentioned this afternoon. The question is whether reducing the involvement of trade union representatives and management in public and private bodies will make business and organisations more competitive—a point made by my noble friend Lord Young. In fact, modern organisations are increasingly complex and put increasing responsibilities and stress on staff at every level.

The authors of this legislation in BIS or the drafting office clearly have never run, and know nothing about running, a large public sector organisation. It is very important that higher management, technical staff and trade unions work together and take more time away from their daily duties to attend courses and meet professional colleagues. The evidence given to us in documents by the Royal College of Nursing was extremely powerful. It said that without spending time on understanding the whole management, mistakes will be made, and we will not be able to use modern technology in medicine.

Of course, I look forward to a future Labour Government, when Ministers will ask City of London companies how much time their staff spend hobnobbing and drinking at City livery companies, and perhaps seek rules to reduce that. We all know that these organisations are simply front organisations for the Conservative Party and are far from being the national representative bodies that one would expect in a country no longer in the Middle Ages. I should have said “England” in the Middle Ages; Wales has clearly moved somewhat further ahead.

As head of the Met Office, I had 3,000 staff and excellent, responsible trade union representatives, which I found very helpful in an informal way, as well as the more formal methods of the well-established Whitley Council meetings. What is extraordinary is the proposal, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, that some Minister—perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Maude, in an earlier existence—will be sending out orders to the chief executives of public sector bodies to tell them how much time they can allow staff to spend on trade union activity. This is a grotesque diminution of the managerial role of these chief executives. I do not think that even “Yes Minister” would have conceived of this level of managerial small-mindedness.

Surely what we should be doing is moving in a different way. The Lord Maudes of this world should in fact be encouraging chief executives to have in their job description that they should work closely with the trade union movement to improve the way that companies operate and to have wider participation in the management of companies. This will be the most important way to reduce disruption and make this country safer and more modern.

When the coalition Government took power in 2010, they waxed lyrical about the need for people’s greater involvement. Clause 14 is another step backwards from this modern public and private organisation. It seems curious that, now we have a Conservative and not a coalition Government, they are a bit cooler about this idea of the people’s society. Surely a strong society is one where people join and collaborate in organisations, and people need to be encouraged. We know, after all, that the Government give tax relief for donations to charities. In most progressive private organisations, subscriptions to professional bodies by professional staff are subsidised and paid for completely by the organisation. Even small enterprises, such as the one that I am chairman of, do this for staff. No one is suggesting that subscriptions to a trade union should be subsidised by the company. All that we are asking, for reasons explained by my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn, is that employers should make it easy for people to join a trade union. Only with people joining trade unions will we have companies working in a modern way, as they do in Germany.

Sadly, the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, is not with us today, but I have had many conversations with him. He was a very active member of the BALPA trade union when he worked in BOAC. His dynamism as a trade union official clearly benefited the entire organisation; it is not just about, as it were, looking after a narrow interest. That was the reason that I joined a trade union: the Electrical Power Engineers’ Association. I could see that, through joining, I could understand the whole organisation. You have quite a different role in a company when you are on the trade union side and the management side; you see different aspects of the organisation. This positive, visionary aspect of the union movement needs to be emphasised.

The other important point I expected to be discussed more today is that women are often slow to see the advantages of trade union membership—perhaps the culture of trade unions is sometimes rather on the blokeish side. But the role for women in trade union organisations is very important, and management everywhere must see the advantages of stronger involvement by women. One way to do that, of course, is to make sure that it is very easy for people to join a trade union and to have their subscription taken from their pay.

I will give noble Lords a story. We have discussed here the need for an understanding of the positive role of trade unions. In the 1970s, I encouraged a brilliant woman medical researcher at a certain university to join the Association of University Teachers, which then took up her case of the unreasonable age-related withholding of tenure, which was very widespread in the university world. Her case went to a tribunal and, subsequently, an important change was made in the way that tenure decisions for women were made. Many, many more women now have a more advanced career in universities.

Similar problems arise all the time and it is, therefore, essential for the Government not merely to withdraw the pernicious Clause 14 but to change it and put an obligation on trade unions and employers to provide more information about trade unions so that staff can participate. The Government should also make it easier for staff to pay their subscription.

In the Minister’s opening remarks in this debate she sounded so progressive, but we then learned many of the rather negative aspects of the Government’s view of the trade unions. That certainly did not reflect a modern, effective, democratic, technically advanced country. Technical advances have not been allowed to be used and, therefore, this is a disappointing Bill. As my noble friend Lord Bragg implied, the future of England as a divided and ineffective country comes nearer with this Bill.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I have been a public servant for most of my working life and an active member of a public service trade union. I am very proud to have been a trade unionist, and I take this Trade Union Bill rather personally.

I regret that we are starting the new year in our tribal groups, emphasising differences, rather than promoting co-operation and employee involvement. I believe that, in pandering to their backwoods supporters, the Government will find that the Bill will do more harm than good. It will make David Cameron’s negotiations with European leaders on a reformed Europe more difficult—perhaps that is the intention.

While top employers are earning 180 times the average wage, and that gap is growing, the government response is to try to weaken trade union influence. In my contribution I want to cover the Certification Office, the deduction of subscriptions from source and the right to strike.

As noble Lords will know, the Certification Office is part of the ACAS family. The coalition Government made it part of the bonfire of the quangos: does everybody remember that one? The Certification Office was considered so insignificant that it was merged with another organisation so that BIS could claim it had halved the quangos in this area. Although it was a great PR exercise, the tiny office and tiny staffing remained the same—but it did lose one photocopier.

Then came the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill in 2013. The Certification Office was rescued from the bonfire in Part 3 and its powers were increased to allow more investigatory powers and to tie up the trade unions and employers’ organisations with more red tape. I urged the then Government to avoid politicising the role of the Certification Officer. Now a Conservative Government has come along—presumably adding the bits the Lib Dems did not like—trying to create a Trojan horse whereby trade unions can be investigated on the initiative of any Nick, Sajid or Anna when the spirit moves. It is this kind of clear-sighted vision which makes politics so admired.

The Certification Office will not only become a highly political, sectarian and controversial organisation but will raise money from its own statutory activities. That is a conflict of interest. Before the Government say that ACAS raises income from its activities—a point carefully placed in the Explanatory Notes—let me make it clear that any revenue-raising in ACAS is associated with assisting organisations to improve their employment relations. This is no longer a statutory duty of ACAS, which I personally regret, and has nothing to do with ACAS’s statutory conciliation duties. One cannot help but wonder whether this proposal is the thin end of a very large wedge. Will the Minister assure us that levying fees will not be extended to the central work of ACAS? I hope the Government will reconsider some of these damaging proposals and draw back from the payment of fees and the powers over political fund expenditure.

Turning to the proposal to outlaw public sector deductions of union subscriptions from source, when I was active in my union I had a lot of experience of collecting union subscriptions before deductions from salaries was introduced in my workplace. This is nothing new. It was an inefficient use of my time when I could have been solving problems with my employer. My question to the Minister is whether the Government will recognise in the Bill the need for facility time for trade union representatives to collect subscriptions. Failure to do this would expose the Government to accusations that they were intent on sabotaging the ability to recruit.

Some members cannot afford to pay an annual subscription all in one go, either in cash or through their bank. Some cannot persuade their bank or building society to deduct subscriptions monthly, because their pay is either too low or too sporadic or both. This could affect school employees in particular. The physical collection of subscriptions will therefore have to take place and representatives will need time to do it. Has the Minister consulted public sector employers about this move? I ask because it will mean that they have no idea who is in a trade union if this proposal is carried.

In my former union, UNISON, the majority of the 1.3 million members have their subscriptions deducted straight from their wages, a process that is beneficial for both employers and members. No employer is required to provide the service. UNISON covers the cost of the administration of check-off whenever asked. The Minister knows that this highly controversial proposal was not in her party’s manifesto. Is she seriously saying that the Government would rather ban check-off than accept union payment for services? Is that because the Government do not trust public sector employers? I am certain that this will be the subject of many amendments.

My final points concern the right to strike. Further restricting the right to strike and removing the ban on the use of agency workers during strikes will worsen employment relations. The Government are well aware that the number of days lost to industrial action per year has fallen substantially. If they really cared about union democracy they would allow electronic voting and the extension of workplace ballots. All the additional legal hurdles contained in the Bill will make settlements more difficult, with or without strike action, and will certainly increase the chance of legal challenges against the union and encourage employers to sit out a dispute.

I am concerned, too, about the use of regulations to cover vitally important areas affecting the democratic rights of workers. This is a pattern with this Government—the framework Government—whereby legislation as flimsy as a pack of cards is put through and the really important bits are presented much later in the form of regulation. In this Bill, we will not know precisely who will be covered by the 40% threshold in Clause 3.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

Therefore, my comments on this methodology and the proposed change of removing the House of Lords’ ability to deal with secondary legislation will be even more powerful.

[Baroness Donaghy]

I thank the noble Lord for that additional piece of wisdom.

In this Bill we will not know precisely who will be covered by the 40% threshold in Clause 3 until the regulations come out. There will be no opportunity to amend or give proper scrutiny, which is our job. This is anti-democratic, as is treating abstentions as no votes for industrial action. Of course strike action should be the last resort, but poor employment relations lead to worse things—absenteeism, presenteeism, low morale and low productivity. This wretched Bill has no contribution to make in these areas.