26th March 2009
25 years on from the miners' strike, David Coats asks; do unions still hold the key to collective voice and action in the workplace?
Twenty-five years on, the miners’ strike continues to divide opinion on the centre left. If you want to generate a rather arid and pointless argument between trade union officials of a certain age, all you need do is ask them to recall the events of 1984-85. Yet despite these passionate disagreements, there is little practical value in replaying the horrors of the battle of Orgreave, or the impact of picket line violence on public opinion, or whether the miners would have been victorious had they enjoyed the enthusiastic support of the TUC and Labour leaderships. The real challenge facing the union movement today is to identify the levers they can use to extend their influence into sectors of the economy where membership is low, and collective voice is weak.
The consequence of the intense conflict of 1984-85 was to delay the process of union reform by almost a decade. Just before the strike began, the TUC had begun to develop the ‘new realism’ strategy. In essence, this amounted to recognition that the existence of the Thatcher government was a fact, that the unions needed to rebuild their legitimacy with the public after the disaster of the winter of discontent and that a new approach to industrial relations was required. Unfortunately, the ‘new realism’ seemed a supreme irrelevance in the miners’ battle for survival. Modernisation would have to wait for another day.
Some may see the recent events at the Lindsey oil refinery as an indication of union resurgence. But I would suggest that the dispute is a hallmark of union weakness rather than strength. The action appeared to be disorganised and the workers’ demands poorly formulated. Initially at least, the unions looked like bystanders, bemused by the ungovernability of their members. Perhaps we should see the strike as a wholly understandable cry of anguish from workers under pressure. Most surprisingly, perhaps the insurrectionary atmosphere on the picket lines – spontaneous protest outside formal union structures – looked more French than British, with the unions struggling to find an acceptable settlement and secure an orderly return to work. Whatever one makes of this dispute, it is unlikely to herald a new and constructive phase in British industrial relations.
The paradox is that, in formal terms at least and largely as a consequence of EU law, British workers have more extensive rights today to be collectively informed and consulted about workplace change than at any point in the past. ‘More rights but no way of enforcing them’ is perhaps the best characterisation of the present position. The government would be foolish to allow this situation to continue, not least because it brings the law into disrepute.
A better approach would be to promote the positive benefits of information and consultation to both employers and employees, with substantial government funds being made available to offer training and support to (albeit non-union) workplace representatives. The choice of which training and what kind of support could be left to the workers themselves – unions would be free to compete for workers’ favour in a market that might also be populated by employment lawyers, citizens advice bureaux, other training providers and expert advisers (accountants, health and safety professionals, organisational psychologists). Success in this contest will require unions to demonstrate their relevance to groups of workers that, hitherto, have been beyond the reach of union organisation. It will offer a great opportunity to rebuild workplace institutions in Britain and crystallise the collectivist commitment that is present but latent in most workplaces today.
Let me be clear: I am committed to the view that Britain will be a fairer and more egalitarian society if trade unions are stronger. But, more than this, I am committed to the principle that collective voice in the workplace is a fundamental human right. Social democrats cannot tolerate a situation where workers are left without representation simply because unions have proved either unable to adapt to economic restructuring or have struggled to develop a compelling proposition for non-members. Put slightly differently, it does not matter how a collective workers’ voice is articulated as long as it is authentic, independent and corrects those imbalances of power that continue to exist in too many British workplaces. That, perhaps, is the real lesson of the miners’ strike.
David Coats is associate director of policy at the
Work Foundation and a member of the IPA executive committee.
This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in the March 2009 edition of Progress.
