Trade Unions

Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

My Lords, if anyone had told me when I was a young trade union officer in the early 2000s that I would be responding from the Front Bench in your Lordships’ House, after speeches by eminent trade unionists and trade union leaders, I would have said that they were dreaming. But here we are and here I am. I follow the introductory speech from my noble friend Lord Jordan, a tour de force on the ILO, the trade union movement and some of its challenges. We look at the future of trade unions and celebrate 100 years of the ILO. I declare my interest as a member of the GMB, but I am not receiving a pension from the union yet, unfortunately.

In touching on the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, about Will Thorne, one of the founding fathers of the GMB and Labour Party, I will bring it more up to date and touch on Sir Paul Kenny, the general secretary who I came in under, and Mary Turner. Mary Turner is unfortunately no longer with us, but she was the epitome of what a trade unionist should be, as well as a fantastic human being. It did not matter who she met, in whichever walk of life; she treated everyone with the same respect. When I was a GMB trade union officer, I saw time and again what a trade union could do—not at the senior political levels, in this House and the other place, and in working with government, but on a day-to-day level, in looking after and supporting individual members, often in dire straits and difficult situations. Helping and supporting those members is probably one of the best things that I have done in my career.

As we mark the centenary of the ILO with this important debate, it does no harm to remember the progress that has been made in the UK in the past 100 years. Annual leave, parental leave, health and safety legislation, the minimum wage, the right to equal treatment and the right to be represented are just a few of the benefits, changes and progresses across the UK. They are almost entirely to the credit and at the behest of the trade unions and their engagement and involvement in politics, pushing and changing government policies, and within the Labour Party. Trade unions are the collective voice of the workers. They play a vital role in representing their members, but also in securing individual workplace rights and, as we heard from my noble friend Lord McKenzie, ensuring health and safety and better working conditions.

Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go in many regards. Compared with some other developed nations, especially many in the EU, workers in the UK face longer working hours, more unequal pay and less time off for childcare, and are less likely to have occupational pensions. Unions in the UK have made many gains but also have much more to achieve in the coming years—but, as we have heard, only if the unions themselves rise to those challenges. The trade unions are best placed to campaign on these issues. Therefore, it is a matter of deep regret that, as a result of years of market deregulation and, as my noble friend Lord Whitty touched on earlier, the changing nature of work and some anti-union policies, we have seen one of the worst declines in union density in Europe since the 1980s. As my noble friend Lady Prosser said earlier, union density in the UK has fallen from 49% in the early 1980s to around 23% now.

However, there are some glimmers of hope and some opportunities. Thanks to the efforts of a number of individual unions in 2017-18—most notably UNISON and my union, the GMB—the number of trade union members has now risen by more than 100,000. But challenges of recruitment remain, and the TUC has identified two in particular. First, there has been great difficulty in recruiting young members. Almost 77% of employees who carry a union card are over 35, and just one in 10 workers aged 20 to 24 is in a union. Secondly, membership in the private sector remains stubbornly lower than in the public sector.

In response to those issues, the TUC has campaigned and taken steps to strengthen unions in the UK, and those actions should be highlighted and commended. They have included promoting policies of expanding collective bargaining and removing the unfair and unnecessary obstacles placed in the way of unions organising in the private sector. With its Digital Lab, the TUC is working with unions to utilise new forms of organising. In addition, TUC Education and the Organising Academy have an outstanding record of providing support by training reps, activists, officers and organisers. If trade unions are to overcome the barriers they face in representing workers in the UK, they can do no better than to work with and take up those examples, led by the TUC.

I should like to discuss the future of trade unions and their work—after all, the Motion before the House explicitly mentions the former. To consider the future of trade unions, we must, first, consider the future of work. Technology is changing the face of work, be it self-checkouts replacing retail workers or ticket barriers replacing ticket collectors. Many jobs are disappearing from the economy and will do so permanently. That in itself is not a bad thing. In the coming years we could see taxi drivers replaced by driverless cars, bricklayers replaced by crane systems, and, if you believe some of the most adventurous prophecies, even nurses replaced by robotics.

The short-term impact of automation has been, and will continue to be, devastating for individual workers, but there are opportunities. The unions must adapt and play their role in the development of policies to make sure that, with different and new forms of work, workers benefit from that new technology rather than become victims of it, as we heard in the eloquent contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox. As work for many has become more unreliable and inconsistent, the unions must offer a voice. Thankfully, be it the GMB, with its deal with Hermes drivers and deliverers, or UNISON supporting social care workers to secure the national minimum wage, unions are continuing to step up to the job.

I remember meeting, in my previous role, the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, who was the Prime Minister’s envoy for trade unions. The one thing I never understood was: why an “envoy”? It sounded as if trade unions were a foreign country. I am sure there could have been a better way forward, but I appreciated that the then Prime Minister was attempting to reach out.

As I finish, it is worth turning back to the ILO, because we are here to celebrate its 100 years. The ILO itself is looking forward to the future. The challenges of globalisation have made international labour standards more relevant than ever. It is worth reading the document. I will not read it out, but it has set out a path to full and productive employment and decent work for all, and 2030 goals. A collective voice will always be stronger than an individual one. In the century since the formation of the ILO, trade unions have time and again acted as the catalyst for change. In the century which follows they will have to adapt and find new ways of organising and campaigning. Fortunately, I have every faith that they will be able to do so.