Trade Union Bill (Fourth sitting)

Seema Kennedy Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

May I pause you for a second? We have 10 minutes remaining and four Members want to ask questions, so we need to speed up the replies and the questions.

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

Q 369 Dr Roach, when your members go on strike, the people affected will all have to arrange alternative childcare because of the nature of your members’ profession. In relation to clause 7, which is on the notice period, do you not recognise that giving parents 14 days, rather than seven, would give them more scope to organise alternative arrangements?

Dr Roach: We do not agree with the proposed measure to increase the notification period for industrial action. It has to be borne in mind that, as a trade union, we are engaged in industrial action that does not always include strike action. In fact, by and large, our industrial action is pupil and parent-friendly. It includes action short of strike action, which is to say working to an idea about what the teacher’s contract should be in order to raise educational standards, so that children’s education is not disrupted.

[Seema Kennedy]

Q 370 But when there is strike action and there is disruption to children’s education and their parents’ ability to go to work, would you not recognise that giving them 14 days’ notice would give them more ample opportunity to re-arrange their lives, so that they can contribute to the economy by going to work?

Dr Roach: I am not going to challenge the logic of what you are saying. What I would argue is—

[Seema Kennedy]

Q 371 So you accept it then.

Dr Roach: I am not going to challenge the logic of the argument you have put forward. The best way to minimise disruption to parents up and down the country is through sensible dialogue, genuine negotiation and a will to resolve industrial disputes before disruption becomes necessary. I would take you back to a point I made at the outset: by and large, our industrial action features action short of strike action, which does not disrupt the rights and ability of parents one jot. At the moment, we have in the Bill a blanket or universal provision affecting all forms of industrial action. That seems to us to be unnecessary and disproportionate.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

Q 372 I have a question for Mr Skewes. Earlier this week, we heard from a Government witness from 2020 Health who seemed unaware that trade unions already have life and limb cover in hospitals when industrial action is taken. Do you believe that the Government’s wider proposals on the use of agency workers during strike action are required?

Jon Skewes: No, not at all. The last thing the English NHS in particular needs is more agency workers, the cost of which has gone up by a factor of 11 over the past two years. If there were proposals to bring in agency workers instead of, for example, midwives, first of all, someone attending a woman giving birth has to be, by law, a midwife or a doctor. We think it would undermine quality and safety. Frankly, in our last industrial action, we ensured that every women in this country had the service that would normally be available to them. Most of our members were not on strike—I would say that 90% of our members were providing that cover and 10% were on what were essentially protests. I think that that was hugely supported by the British public.

There are a number of other things. First, there are not that many of those people. If we look at the figures—I think this is in our written evidence—most agency workers are already working in the NHS at the moment. They are probably also our members, so the agency workers themselves would be on strike.

Secondly, I think it would have a really bad effect on team morale and the way in which safety is underpinned. Those people do not have the knowledge of trust safety protocols, quality protocols and so on. We resent the fact that, given the way we absolutely went out of our way with trusts and NHS England to underpin safety during that dispute, we would be faced with a dilemma in the future. Do we allow them to just replace our members with agency workers, which would be much more costly but we know would not be as safe? I do not think we would do that. It is a dilemma that we resent.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Mr McCluskey, when Nusrat Ghani asked you a question a bit earlier on, you referred to a case that she raised and you alluded to evidence of the case and that there was no action by the police, who noted that no action was needed. Could you send the Committee a note about that? It would be quite useful to Members on both sides when they come to judge the evidence that has been given.

Len McCluskey: Yes.

[Seema Kennedy]

Q 394 I think it was you, Mr Prentis, who mentioned productivity earlier on. I accept that your organisations often prevent strikes, but they do happen. Do you accept that when millions of people are out of the workplace because of a strike or when a strike is threatened—we have heard a lot about the threat of strikes being disruptive to lives and businesses—it will inevitably have an impact on productivity?

Dave Prentis: It will inevitably have an impact, otherwise why would the workers be doing it? The issue is when you take the action. You take it as a final resort. We represent low-paid women, nearly 1 million of them, and they cannot afford to miss a day’s pay. It must take something drastically wrong and unfair. They are not motivated by aggrandisement. Something happening to them that is unfair will motivate a low-paid woman public service worker to vote for industrial action.

We cannot just talk about the effect on the public and ignore the effect on the individual striker, because they are doing it for a real reason: they feel very aggrieved about how they have been treated. They have to have the ability to seek a settlement. If we cannot get settlements, the right for workers to withdraw their labour is obviously a final resort that is allowed in the ILO conventions, which Frances has been talking about. It is impossible to take industrial action that does not have some effect on people, otherwise why take it?

If you are talking about productivity, productivity is everything that happens during the course of a year. For our members, on average, a member will take action every 15 years, yet we are obsessing over productivity. The issue with productivity is getting more skilled, higher-paid workers within our environments and ensuring that people are well treated and can contribute. It is about having the investment to increase productivity—that is not necessarily coming through—and having a fairer society where people want to contribute. You cannot connect productivity with the small number of days that are lost.

[Seema Kennedy]

Q 395 Can I just bring it back to women? You say that you represent a lot of women who are low-paid.

Dave Prentis: A million.

[Seema Kennedy]

Q 396 Many of whom will be mothers or have other caring responsibilities, perhaps for other family members. In the TUC submission, where you are talking about the notice period, you say that it will needlessly delay the start of industrial action. Do you not recognise that for those women, they might need those 14 days to arrange extra care for their dependants? Extending the period from seven days to 14 days might be useful for them, because of the disruption.

Frances O'Grady: I am not aware that the Bill is only targeting the 14-day notice period in areas where mothers will be affected by the strike. It is a false prospectus. Let us be clear about this: the extension of the notice period is designed to reduce momentum and participation in the strike and weaken the union’s hand.

With your agreement, I will make a very small point on productivity, on which I can give you some hard evidence. The number of days lost through industrial action during the past year adds up to just one half of one ten-thousandth of a percent of all working days. To put that in perspective, the number of days lost through issues around health, safety and wellbeing is 450 times that—

[Seema Kennedy]

I would not dispute that, but we want to increase productivity in everything.

[The Chair]

Order.

Frances O'Grady: I just wanted to make the point that our union representatives play an absolutely critical role in delivering higher productivity in the workplace, including through health and safety. A number of those strikes are directly relevant to issues, such as health and safety, that in the long run are important for business and the economy, as well as for working people. Again, I think you have to understand that trade union activity and strength actually improves Britain’s productivity by creating safer, healthier and better trained workforces.