TUC conference highlights tensions in union-government relations

The annual conference of the UK's Trades Union Congress, which took place in September 2003, highlighted the growing tensions in relations between trade unions and the Labour government. This article reviews the policies the conference adopted on a range of key issues.

The 135th annual policy-making conference of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) was held in Brighton on 8-11 September 2003. Currently, 69 trade unions with a combined membership of nearly 7 million members are affiliated to the TUC. The four largest unions represent around half of this total: Unison, the public service union, has 1.3 million members; Amicus has just over 1 million; the Transport and General Workers’ Union, 850,000; and the GMB general union, 690,000. Each trade union can send delegates to the conference and submit resolutions for debate, the outcome of which provides the basis for the future work of the TUC.

Apart from its policy-making function, the conference offers the best opportunity for trade unions to project their values and policies to a wider audience. TUC leaders can attract greater media attention to policy initiatives and their stance on controversial issues, immediately before and during the conference, than at any other time. For the last few years, media interest has focused on the tense relations between trade unions and government, arising especially from TUC opposition to government policies on employment rights and public service reform (UK0111107F). Whilst the conference explores in detail a wide range of trade union concerns, it is often presented in the media as an arena for polarised political debate. Alongside policy differences between unions, employers and the government, the media also focus on divisions between moderate and more militant trade union leaders, especially since the election of left-wing leaders in some of the most prominent unions in recent years (UK0306105N).

The 2003 conference discussed a wide range of policies within the following broad categories:

• economic and industrial affairs, especially job losses in manufacturing;

• European and international issues, including EU Economic and Monetary Union, and the war in Iraq;

• rights at work, including equal rights legislation;

• pensions and welfare;

• public service reform, especially in the national health service;

• education, learning and skills; and

• health and safety.

This article focuses on three contested policy areas - employment rights, public service reform and pensions. It also briefly discusses the presentation made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown.

Employment rights

In his opening speech to the conference, Brendan Barber, the TUC general secretary, argued that the government had failed to deliver 'all the fairness at work we demand', and had made too many concessions to the business lobby. Nonetheless, the TUC had won crucial changes in the law covering the minimum wage (UK9904196F), union recognition rights (UK0201171F), parental leave (UK9912144F), and workplace union learning representatives (UK0305102F). It had also recently reached a framework agreement (UK0307106F) with the government and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) on the implementation of the EU employee information and consultation Directive (2002/14/EC) (EU0204207F).

The conference debate highlighted union calls for further reforms, notably:

• to extend the coverage of union recognition rights to small firms;

• to strengthen the rights of employees facing redundancy;

• to end the confusion in UK law under which some atypical workers are denied access to employment rights; and

• to resist the attempt by government and employers to block or dilute the draft EU Directive on temporary agency workers (EU0306206F).

The resolution adopted also included a demand for changes in the law covering strikes, including that employers should not be able to dismiss strikers lawfully after eight weeks of industrial action, and that legislation against secondary industrial action (solidarity strikes) should be repealed. Bob Crow, general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), urged workers to take to the streets in protest against UK employment laws, ensuring that this part of the debate attracted the most media attention and almost universal press condemnation of the more militant trade union leaders.

Public service reform

The debate on public services was shaped by the publication of a TUC general council statement, and a meeting between trade union leaders and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in the week before the conference. The general council statement acknowledged that 'for the first time in a generation there is a sustained commitment to increased investment in public services and public service employment is expanding'. It noted that progress had been made in addressing some TUC concerns:

• a new code of practice could bring to an end the 'two-tier' workforce in local government (UK0302107F);

• planned pay reforms in the National Health Service are a step towards the elimination of low and unequal pay (UK0303104F); and

• the agreement between the government and unions representing school staff should help to reduce the workload of teachers (UK0302105F).

Despite these positive developments, the statement sharply criticised the substance of some government policies, and the way that they had been developed and presented. Tension between unions and the government had been caused by slow progress in dealing with the two-tier workforce in the health service, the fire service dispute (UK0307101N), and government plans for 'foundation hospitals' (UK0306103N), public sector pensions, and an increase in competition and private sector involvement in the delivery of public services. All of these policies were strongly condemned in conference debates. The general council statement criticised the absence of consultation on some issues, and the government’s unwillingness to respond to 'informed criticism' on others. This gave the impression that 'modernisation and reform is something to be done to public service workers rather than a process to which they contribute as active partners'. This force of this complaint led to a number of meetings between union leaders and government ministers over the last nine months, culminating in the Prime Minister’s agreement at the beginning of September to set up a Public Services Forum that will enable union leaders and government ministers to discuss public service issues on a more regular and formal basis.

Pensions

The conference reaffirmed its policy that the government should provide a better state pension, up-rated annually in line with the rise in earnings not prices, thus preventing the increasing reliance on means testing. Speaking on behalf of the TUC general council, Jeannie Drake of the Communication Workers’ Union called for a wider reform of a system 'that disadvantages millions of women and penalises them for their caring responsibilities, their low pay and often their part-time status'. She noted that a government consultation document on pensions published in December 2002 addressed this issue, but offered few proposals on the ways in which poverty among women pensioners will be tackled.

The conference strongly opposed the government’s proposal that the normal retirement age in the public services should be raised from 60 to 65, but most of the anger expressed in the debate was directed against employers. An increasing number of companies have closed 'final salary' occupational pension schemes for new employees, and replaced them with inferior 'defined contribution' schemes with much lower employer contributions (UK0301109F). Employers were accused of double standards: many of the directors of companies that have eroded the pension entitlements of their employees continue to enjoy very generous final salary pensions. The conference resolved to develop further the very active TUC campaign on pensions that has emerged in the last year or so.

Commentary

In several conference debates - for example on employment rights and the problems faced by manufacturing industry in the UK - delegates drew attention to the more favourable policies and practices in many other EU Member States. These sentiments did not prevent an acrimonious debate on the general council statement that welcomed the government’s commitment to the 'principle of joining the euro, when the five economic tests are met' (UK0308104F). The policy of the TUC was maintained, but only by the narrow margin of 3.2 million votes to 2.8 million. In his speech a few hours earlier, John Monks, general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, asked delegates 'why do we [the UK] approach every major development in the EU like a child shivering at the pool’s edge … and why do we approach issues like the euro as if we were constipated bank managers?'

Mr Monks also said that in his last six years as TUC general secretary, he had been frustrated by some of the policies of the present Labour government. Nonetheless, he argued that it has been responsible for many positive developments, including economic stability, high employment levels, more public servants, the growing skills and learning services work, better labour laws and winning elections, and that 'trade unionists sometimes yawn and switch off when the achievements are being listed by ministers', perhaps anticipating the conference’s reaction the next day to a lengthy and detailed speech on UK economic policies and performance by Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Moreover, delegates did not wholly appreciate the message offered by Mr Brown when he asserted that 'there can be no return to inflationary pay rises, no return to loss-making subsidies that prevent the best long-term decisions for Britain, no resort to legislation from Europe or elsewhere that would risk jobs, no retreat from a pro-enterprise and pro-industry agenda, and there can be no retreat from demanding efficiency and value for money as well as equity as we renew and reform each of our public services'.

According to most commentators, this uncompromising defence of government policy - and public display of unity with Tony Blair - disappointed the self-proclaimed 'awkward squad' of trade union leaders and activists who spent most of the conference denouncing the Prime Minister. At a time when opinion poll ratings for the Prime Minister and the government are at their lowest level for many years, and when newly elected leaders in major unions are threatening more militant policies, the tension between unions and government is unlikely to subside. There is also likely to be an even greater demand for the diplomatic skills of senior TUC officials in mediating potential internal conflicts within the UK’s only trade union confederation. (David Winchester, IRRU)