Union Builders Better Get Ready

Another Labour Government looks to be upon us and its time to plan our campaigns based on our recent experience

As set out in this blog earlier in the year (Union Building With a Labour Government (msmithorganiser.wixsite.com) despite much recent re-writing of history, New Labour let union builders down in the initial period after 1997.

The size of their 179 seat majority meant Labour didn’t need to answer the phone to unions – let alone call us. Also, too many union leaders sat on their hands thinking the job had been done just by getting the Tories out after 18 years. An oven ready White Paper had been agreed with New Labour before polling day after all. What could go possibly wrong?

Weak enforcement arrangements plagued the raft of rights for individual workers New Labour brought in across its first term. The 1999 Employment Act ended up with more holes in it than a Swiss cheese and poor enforcement sabotaged its value for both individuals and collectively.

Those of us trying to build unions in workplaces simply could not effectively deploy the few policies that could have helped collective organising: union recognition rights, the Minimum Wage or the Working Time Directive to build our unions.

The lessons for union builders in 2024 are clear: pressure union leaderships from day one to swap their kid gloves for boxing gloves and campaign at the Labour Government for detailed collective enforcement of the promised new rights. We cannot settle for any more pantomime horses or glove puppets when it comes to workers’ rights to organise

Consultations with trade unions and the CBI on Labours Make Work Pay promises are due to start immediately after the election. With just over three months until these consultations are slated to end, there is no time to lose, and we must not repeat the mistakes of 1997 by sitting on our hands and waiting for a new Labour government to knock on our door.

The full list of 32 consultations starting from 5th July can be found on the link: LABOUR'S PLAN TO MAKE WORK PAY. Unions will have their individual policy priorities and 22 of these consultations relate to another new raft of rights at work for individual workers. These however are the 11 key Labour promises that could most help collective organising and suggested the focus of our enforcement campaigns in 2024:

1.      A Single Enforcement Agency for employment rights/ recognition of collective grievances in law

2.      The rights of all workers to access unions at work

3. Stronger rules with no loopholes to achieve union recognition with hostile employers like Amazon

4.      National Living Wage that people can actually get and then live on without benefits

5. Equal Pay enforcement including through pay gap reporting

6.      An end to zero and tiny hours contracts through the new 12 week rule

7.      An end to Fire and Rehire/Fire and Replace via a new statutory code

8.      New TUPE regulations and protections for workers whose jobs are sold

9.      Rights at work for self employed workers

10     Fair Pay agreements starting in the Care Sector and SSSNB in schools

11.   Legalise protective action for Health and Safety concerns at work

This list doesn’t define all the promises from Labour that could improve workers rights and opportunities to organise. We will also need clear answers where they have been silent - not least on public sector pay, sectoral pay bargaining and the right to protest and take industrial action.

We must also campaign at Labour for clarity on whether employers in the 74 Special Economic Zones they are helping to establish will be exempt from new employment rights as they are exempt for tax, VAT and potentially the minimum wage. And keep pushing for Labour to support trials for the Four Day Week in the public sector and Universal Basic Income

Union builders’ voices are seldom heard loudly and clearly by policy makers – sometimes even within trade unions themselves. Let’s keep shouting for our rights to build our unions at work. And never forget that every step of the way, we will be opposed by the powerful lobbying of the CBI at the Labour Government.

So this time, let’s be ready.

Hear more at the Organising for a Change Radio podcast here: https://makes-you-think.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f0726ab9765c17aa1d0ca8526&id=9442d7d898&e=e92177320c