Trade Union Access to Workplaces

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Ms McDonagh, for allowing me to speak in this very important and timely debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid) on securing it and on speaking so passionately in his introductory remarks. He raised issues that resonate very strongly with me and, indeed, with the wider trade union movement across this country.

It is good to start on a positive note: trade union membership in the United Kingdom has gone up in the past year by 103,000. Now 6.35 million people are members of a trade union in the United Kingdom. However, the long-term trends still give cause for concern. Trade union membership is half of its peak in the late 1970s, when there were 12 million members of trade unions. Over that time, we have seen a 5% fall in the labour share of our economy—the share of our gross national wealth taken home by workers in wages has fallen. There is a strong correlation between the trade union organisation and collective bargaining power in our economy and the amount of wealth that workers are able to secure from the fruits of their labour.

We need to return that fundamental analysis to the heart of how we understand our economy and the relationship between working people and the owners of capital. It has been forgotten from the mainstream narrative in this country, which is about shirkers, people not working hard enough and how people need to be more flexible and sacrifice more, rather than about unity, organisation and agitation against exploitation and in favour of workers’ right to receive the fruits of their labour. The correlation is stark; it is a fact of economic history. The long-term trend in the past 40 years is a diminishing share of wealth for workers.

It would not be half as bad if that share, which workers once took home in their pay packets, was invested by companies and private capital to improve the efficiency of our economy. However, it has not been invested at all. Investment as a share of GDP has flatlined throughout that period. I wonder where that share of capital has gone. The workers are producing wealth and productivity continues to go up, but the share taken home in wages is declining. What happens to that share? It is extracted in profits by companies, which are often not based in the United Kingdom. The wealth is taken overseas, often to opaque tax havens around the world, or invested elsewhere. It is never seen by the people who produce the wealth.

That is the stark reality that we face. That is why, I would argue, having a Labour Government is so critical to restoring the collective bargaining powers in our economy, which are so essential to recapturing the share of the wealth that working people rightly deserve and produce in this country. Workers put in great innovation, productivity and effort every day in many workplaces across the United Kingdom. However, we have seen the hollowing out of their collective capacity to fight for their share of the wealth they produce.

We have seen an increase in trade union membership. Of the total UK workforce, about 23% of workers are in trade unions. However, there are regional disparities in the way trade union organisation works across the United Kingdom. Trade union membership in London and the south-east is 16% to 17% of workers, yet in Scotland, the north-west, north-east and Wales it is between 28% and 30%. There is significant regional variation. There are a number of reasons for that.

First, in areas with traditional manufacturing and labour-intensive employment, where there are large industrial employers, there seems to be more cultural recognition of trade union membership—it is an accepted fact of life. Secondly, in some regions the public sector forms a much more important share of the economy. In public sector workplaces, 52% of the workforce are trade union members, whereas in the private sector, membership is at a mere 13%. That is a huge contrast, which has evolved and become more stark in the past 40 years.

There is a significant age disparity in trade union membership, which reflects the increased casualisation of work. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South mentioned McDonald’s employees being exploited. Many in the retail and food sectors see that happen on a daily basis. Just 4% of 16 to 24-year-olds are members of trade unions, and 77% of trade union members are over 35. The age disparity is significant and we need to tackle it.

We need to introduce information about trade unions into our education system. When I first entered work, I was exploited by employers. I undertook unpaid trial shifts. I worked minimum-wage jobs. I was denied tips. I started in a pizzeria and then worked in a supermarket. When I started working in fruit and veg at Morrisons supermarket, we had a presentation from the USDAW official. At that time, I did not really understand what a trade union was or why it would be significant to me. Why should I give up the precious little money I was paid to a trade union when I could take it home and spend it on going out and having a good time with my pals? Believe it or not, I did have a good time. Education is required on why trade union representation is important, particularly for young people for whom exploitation has never been more critical.

[Ruth George]

I am pleased to hear that my hon. Friend had a positive experience of the USDAW official. Unfortunately, I have met too many people, young and old, who started their first job in fruit and veg in a supermarket and injured their back, often for life, because of incorrect lifting practices, and who did not have trade union representation in the workplace to support them and ensure they were lifting correctly. That happens to too many young people. I hope it did not happen to my hon. Friend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sweeney]

Believe it or not, that did not happen. I managed to survive my experience in fruit and veg largely unscathed. My hon. Friend makes an important point. People never know when they will need a trade union until they do. It is critical that people join, because it is like an insurance policy. We need to educate people in that necessity.

My first adult job was in a shipyard. It was a traditional engineering and manufacturing company—a large-scale employer—where there was significant trade union density. At that point, I joined the Unite and GMB trade unions, because they were the shipyard trade unions. They ably represent the workforce on the Clyde and are often mentioned in this place. I ran into trouble from time to time in the shipyard and my trade union was critical in helping me get through those difficult periods. If I had a dispute with my bosses or another issue, the officials were very helpful. I did not know when I would need them—when a bit of bad luck could strike. It is critical that people understand why trade union membership is so important.

[Danielle Rowley]

My hon. Friend is giving a detailed analysis and a great speech. Does he agree that there is less trade union membership in the third sector? It is often seen to be the nice sector, but it employs a lot of young people and women, and we need to encourage more trade union membership within it.

[Mr Sweeney]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. She makes a good point about the gender disparity. It is interesting to note that female membership of trade unions has increased in the past year, but male membership has decreased. That does not read across the different sectors that she mentioned. It is important to recognise that issue, particularly when we look at casualisation in the workforce, which is a key driver of why workers are taking home less in their pay packets than they ought to.

Traditional collective bargaining in large-scale organisations and traditional large industrial workplaces are fragmenting, and the way people work is continually atomising. We need to adapt our trade union regulation and organisation to reflect the changing nature of our economy. The charity sector has not been penetrated by the trade union movement to the same extent. We need to tackle that. Great thought must be given to how to increase recruitment to trade unions in those non-traditional workplaces.

I will offer another view as to why trade union membership is so critical. In the past few months, I have been dealing with a major industrial dispute in my constituency. The Caley railway works, which has been around for 160 years, faces closure. From 1948 to 1995 it was part of British Rail, but it was privatised and sold off. It has been through myriad different owners, culminating in an overseas company purchasing it in an asset-stripping exercise. There are 200 people on that site, which faces closure. Thankfully, they have high trade union density—90%, which is fantastic—because the railway works was a traditional workplace. The trade union was able to swing into action immediately when the closure was announced.

In stark contrast, when the immediate closure of Jamie’s Italian was announced, the workforce were completely blindsided and had no capacity to organise and effectively agitate against that exploitation. People were told to go home with no recourse, redundancy payment or share in the liquidation of the company. With the potential closure of the Caley railway works, the trade union was able to organise to bid up the terms and conditions of severance for the workforce. The liabilities of the workforce were originally assessed as being about £700,000 to close the site. The trade union has now managed to negotiate almost £4 million from the employer to wind up the site. That is an amazing achievement, and the company has even offered to try to sell it or pay the Government to take the site off its hands, because the owners just want rid of it. That is just one example of how effective negotiation by trade unions can massively improve the hand of workers who face really difficult disputes with their employers.

I pay tribute to the tenacity of the Caley railway works workforce, who are facing the most testing conditions and were told just before Christmas—as is often the case—that they would lose their livelihoods. People have been working there for generations. Families have grown up and lived around the railway works their whole lives, to the point that in some cases people felt there was no other way out but to take their lives. The stress that the workforce have had to deal with has been absolutely appalling. I pay tribute to their tenacious work, particularly by Pat McIlvogue of Unite the union, in organising the workforce and keeping their spirits high at a really tough time. I hope the Government in Edinburgh will step in and take action to save those jobs and the workforce, because they deserve it. They deserve to have that commitment shown to them by the state.

The Government and trade unions can work in co-operation to ensure that we salvage the collective knowledge and skills of our workforce and redeploy them in the future, rather than see the industrial vandalism that has so often happened across this country, where we have seen industrial capability destroyed. With the lack of a trade union to organise, agitate and struggle against it, there has not been the fight that could have been mounted. I pay tribute to everyone in the trade union movement who has fought so hard for workers’ rights to capture a better share of workers’ efforts—in the form of labour—in wages, and to secure their rights and those of future generations who will follow in their footsteps, so that we have a prosperous society that gets a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms McDonagh. I congratulate the hon. Member for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid) on securing this debate and on bringing forward his ten-minute rule Bill, which I support—he has my guarantee.

It is traditional in these trade union debates to make our declarations. I declare my 20 years of trade union activity before I was elected to this place, my membership of Glasgow City Unison, and my position as chair of the Public and Commercial Services Union parliamentary group. I will in the next few days declare a settlement agreement with my former employer as a result of an equal pay claim.

I make those declarations not just to show my trade union credentials; it is obviously important to mention the trade union role in the education and personal development of workers. I have no shame in saying—I am sure I am not the only Member of Parliament present who would say this—that I would not be here without the skills, knowledge and experience I gained as a trade union representative and activist.

The hon. Member for Warrington South described the historical and present contexts. On the current context, it is very interesting that the governing party is having a leadership election—a so-called grand national, although I think the grand national is for thoroughbreds, not necessarily for people putting themselves forward for leader of the Conservative party. Many who are seeking to be the next Prime Minister have the inclination to deregulate markets—an inclination not too dissimilar to that of Donald Trump. It seems that some will argue over the next few years that the solution to a deregulated market is to deregulate it even further. It is complete and utter political nonsense.

[Mr Sweeney]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the contenders for leadership of the Conservative party. The Foreign Secretary presides over a Department that is in dispute with PCS over Interserve. The Department has essentially hived off core staff into an arm’s length company that fails even to recognise the trade union that is mentioned in employees’ contracts. Is that not shameful? The Foreign Office should act immediately to resolve the situation.

[Chris Stephens]

I agree wholeheartedly, but on this occasion the hon. Gentleman underdoes his criticism of the Foreign Office. It gave a contract to a company that will be the next Carillion, because it is in administration. It is absolutely and utterly ludicrous that the Government are giving contracts to companies that are failing.

Members including the hon. Member for Midlothian (Danielle Rowley) have mentioned the historical context and blacklisting. We know that it has been going on in the construction sector. The difference between that sector and other sectors of the economy is that people in the construction sector found the blacklist, but I know there are blacklists in other sectors. Given my trade union activity over the past 20 years, I would be very surprised if I were not on a blacklist.

We have seen the erosion of trade union rights over the past few decades. There is the anti-trade union Bill, which I will touch on; the erosion of facility time in the public sector; the publishing of that facility time, and the suggestion that it is a cost to the public purse when it is not; a public sector pay cap; and the erosion of collective bargaining. In Scotland, 81% of workers were covered by collective bargaining agreements for pay in 1979. The figure is now 23% as a result of the deregulation of markets.

The examples provided by the hon. Member for Warrington South are very alarming. As far as the Scottish National party is concerned, all workers should have the right to trade union membership and to organise as a collective trade union. Multinational companies purposefully stopping trade unions from recruiting staff is against employer best practice, and does not bode well for the prospect of positive workplace relations. These incidents can make workers feel isolated and alienated, further frustrating cohesion in the working environment.

As the hon. Gentleman said, the benefits of a trade union workforce have been consistently documented by research—not just by the TUC, but by others—that suggests members are more likely to be paid more, more likely not to be dismissed, more likely to have better leave provisions and more likely to work fewer hours of unpaid overtime. Those are important gains. Members are also more likely to find themselves in a pay and grading scheme that complies with the Equal Pay Act 1970, and trade unions have played a vital role in ensuring that employers comply with that very important piece of legislation. As the chief economist of the Bank of England has said, the weakening of trade union power in the United Kingdom has hit workers’ pay over the past few decades.

Trade unionism should be viewed as an opportunity to improve workplace relations, as trade union representatives and officials bring a vital perspective to a workplace, and do more than play a role in collective bargaining; for example, they ensure effective communication between employers and workers. Indeed, trade unions provide workers who go on to become trade union representatives with the opportunity for personal development through lifelong learning. They ensure a common footing on communication between employees and employers.

I want to highlight the great work being done by organisations such as Better Than Zero, which is highlighting some awful employment practices, particularly on zero-hour contracts and the status of workers—the bogus self-employment that is increasing in the economy. Since I support the ten-minute rule Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Warrington South, I hope that he will support mine, the Workers (Definition and Rights) Bill, because it is important that we deal with zero-hours contracts. Under my Bill, such contracts would be allowed in only one circumstance: where there is a collective agreement with an organised trade union. That would nail once and for all the view espoused by some people that workers like zero-hours contracts. Having trade unions in workplaces where there are zero-hours contracts would put that to the test.

My Bill would simplify the status of workers, because there is far too much bogus self-employment—people are finding out that they are self-employed when they thought that they were employees. It would also provide another opportunity to expose the anti-trade union Act that was passed in the last Parliament and has significantly reduced the mobilisation and organising power of trade unions. The Act has in particular impacted on facility time, which is integral to a trade union’s ability to prepare for collective bargaining. That law pits the Government and employers against trade unions and is needlessly divisive. Publishing details of facility time and its so-called cost to the public purse is frankly outrageous. The fact is that trade union reps save both time and money by improving workplace relations and enforcing best practice.

I support the hon. Gentleman’s Bill, and I hope he supports mine. It is a pleasure once again to support the trade union movement—the best partner with our society.