Trade Union Bill

Lord Monks Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

I think it needs such sources of money at the moment.

Another issue that has not been raised is that a good employer wants representative unions. As someone who has been involved as a manager—I know that the unions may be suspicious of this—I liked to know who was in the union, because I wanted to know how representative the leadership of the union was in negotiations, how serious they were and how I should respond to them. That is an important point.

Another point that the Conservatives have overlooked is that, if you get unions down to a core so that they are unrepresentative, you will face very difficult decisions. I always remember Vic Feather saying, “I always look to the faces of the people at the back of a room, not the voices of the activists at the front”. If you want representative unions, you want the highest number of your employees to be members of that union. Not to upset my Labour friends, but if you go down this route, you will be handing the trade unions to the Corbynites, the less representative groups. You will have more trouble in the trade unions as a result, particularly in the public sector, than if you recognise that the rank and file—the people involved in high-turnover sectors, the cleaners—have good judgment when they have to face the decision whether to lose wages and take industrial action. Those people provide the solid support for trade unions, and you should be encouraging them. If you do not, you will end up with worse industrial relations.

I support Amendment 92. It is a good way forward, and the Government should look carefully at it. The amendments of the noble Lords, Lord Kerslake and Lord Balfe, help in the debate. We must address the fact that, once again, the Government speak devolution and then do absolutely the opposite—as in local government. The Bill, and these provisions, do not help us to modernise industrial relations.

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

Perhaps I can help the Minister to join the consensus on how awful the clause is by stressing one point that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, touched on. It is about choice. There is sometimes confusion in audiences that I address about check-off. People wonder, “Is it to do with the closed shop? Is it compulsory that union subs are deducted by the employer and sent to the union?”. The answer is no: the closed shop is history, it has gone. There is no compulsion, it is voluntary. There is also sometimes confusion with the political contribution, the political levy, where there is an opt-out. If there is any inertia selling, it tends to be on the side of the opt-out system.

This is a matter of choice. When my daughter got a job in the Minister’s former company, Tesco, as a Saturday girl, she got a form in the recruitment pack that said, “Do you want to be a member of the union? If so sign here. Do you agree to have your subscription deducted from the payroll? If so sign here”. That was the system. If it is good enough for Tesco, why can it not be good enough for Manchester City Council or all the other public bodies that will be covered by this provision? Why manufacture a series of disputes about union contributions and how they are collected in a vast range of British places of employment? It is a step far too far, and I hope that the Minister will listen carefully to what is said on all sides of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Monks]

I remind the Minister about workplace pensions. They are a very recent auto-enrolment initiative. They do not go back to the 1990s; they go back about two years. They are based on payroll deductions. They are not old-fashioned; they are efficient. They are the way to do things. They are much cheaper than direct debit and much easier for people to handle. That is why, on a consensus basis, auto-enrolment is based on payroll deductions.

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, I do not wish to be discourteous to the Committee in any way, but there have been five or six interruptions so far and the Minister has been on her feet for four minutes. If she is allowed to make just a little bit of progress, perhaps during the course of that progress she will be able to respond to some of the questions being put.