‘THE most vicious attack on the rights of British workers for a generation, to create state-sponsored victimisation of trade unionists.’
This is how construction workers’ union UCATT described the Tory Trade Union Bill, which is due to have its second reading in the House of Commons this month. It has been deliberately formulated to smash the effectiveness of trade unions across many areas of their work and expose ordinary workers to possible blacklisting, said the union.
A key part of the Bill will be to brand picket organisers as troublemakers and open them up to a lifetime of blacklisting by employers. The Bill would single out picket organisers by forcing them to wear brightly coloured armbands, register with police and carry at all times a letter of authorisation from the union. If unions don’t comply, employers will be able to go to court to bust strike action.
‘The police are being asked to become agents for the employer; while the employer is being asked to become an agent for the police,’ said Keith Ewing, Professor of Public Law at King’s College, London. The police would now be empowered to have picketing stopped by triggering civil liabilities, at the initiative of the employer – even though the picket is peaceful and no offence has been committed. This is an extraordinary provision.’
Professor Ewing added: ‘Here we have the government imposing a duty on picket supervisors to produce their letter of authorisation to anyone who reasonably wants to see it. Presumably this will include employers. The risk is that this information will then be easily distributed in construction and other industries. In the light of the recent scandal and the unresolved business of blacklisting, workers will rightly be cautious about giving any information to employers about picketing.’
UCATT as a union was infiltrated by a member of the Metropolitan Police’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) in the mid-90s and is currently embroiled in a high-profile legal case against some of the largest construction companies in the UK who operated a cartel ruining the lives of thousands of workers by blacklisting them for decades.
Brian Rye, National Secretary of UCATT, said: ‘The clear intent of this right-wing government is to intimidate workers, undermine any action taken to protect workers’ rights and serve the unions up on a plate for the bosses. Ordinary workers acting as picket organisers will be targeted and no doubt blacklisted by employers.
‘We’ve seen this before in the construction industry. It’s a reality we deal with every day. This Bill will effectively enforce the restrictions of a police state on the British worker. It’s an unprecedented level of attack on workers, something not applied to the likes of bankers who devastated our economy. This highly political Bill aims to hamstring the work of trade unions by making them jump through costly and laborious hoops in order to ballot members for strike action.
‘The Bill is a gift for big business. Restrictions on employers hiring agency workers to bust strikes will be lifted and the Certification Officer, who regulates trade unions, will have swingeing new powers to impose crippling fines for any so-called breaches of conduct.
”This Tory government is doing its darndest to crush trade unions and deprive workers of their rights. We must fight this Bill with everything we have. It’s not too strong to say this Bill is the greatest threat to workers, trade unions and workers’ rights for a generation. In a democracy, we let this Bill pass at our peril,’ added Rye.
BFAWU (Bakers Union) Organising North-West Regional Secretary, Geoff Atkinson, told News Line: ‘The TUC should call a general strike. To take away our right to strike or picket will make it even harder for us to achieve the things we need to achieve for our members. We need the TUC and the trade unions to have a general strike – they can’t put us all in jail.
‘This law will give bosses the opportunity to label people troublemakers and blacklist them. The last I heard is that you’ve got to supply a list of names of people taking part in a picket and that in itself will enable the means to create a blacklist, which no doubt would then be made available to bosses everywhere. We will get nowhere by marching against the Tory conference up in Manchester. The only form of action that will defeat this draconian legislation is direct action, in the form of a general strike.’
Meanwhile, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) yesterday warned that the proposed Trade Union Bill could have serious consequences for productivity and morale in the NHS, as new research shows that trade unions are saving the NHS at least £100 million every year. It said that independent evidence has revealed that staff turnover in organisations without union representatives is three times higher than in those with union representatives.
This equates to an annual saving in the NHS of at least £100 million, and for a large teaching hospital represents an annual saving of around £1 million. When the NHS is struggling to recruit and retain staff already, limiting the work of trade unions by capping the amount of facility time available to representatives will have a detrimental effect on staff turnover and productivity which the health service cannot afford.
The RCN is warning that the attempts to limit and monitor facility time are based on an incorrect assumption that there are too many trade union representatives in the public sector. Analysis of a sample of British workplaces shows that in public sector health care there is one representative for every 80 employees, compared to one for every 66 employees in the private sector.
More worryingly, the proposals in the bill which are aimed at saving public money are likely to, in fact, have the opposite effect, if union representatives find themselves less able to promote safe work environments, reduce staff turnover and improve productivity. The research did not take into account other benefits of union representatives, including early resolution of disputes, reduction of sick days caused by work-related injury and illness, and productivity improvements through helping staff acquire new skills.
Janet Davies, Chief Executive & General Secretary of the RCN said: ‘The government claims that the Trade Union Bill will save public sector money but it will actually have the opposite effect. Aside from the financial cost of high staff turnover, when the NHS is already struggling to recruit and retain enough staff, removing the positive impact of union representation risks having a significant impact on patient safety.
‘It is far too simplistic to simply look at the cost of facilities time without considering the many benefits. The health service can ill-afford further damage to staff morale, or to squander even more money on recruitment costs. The trade union bill is bad for staff, employers and most importantly it is bad for patients.’