Dan Hodges, The Telegraph, 24th NovemberYesterday the Prime Minister launched a robust assault on the impending strike action by public sector workers. “It is the height of irresponsibility,” he chided.
David Cameron couldn’t have been more wrong. If union leaders hadn’t decided to call strike action next Wednesday they’d have needed their heads examining.
Let’s start from the basis that even within a modern, mixed economy, collective representation in the workplace has its role. Obviously there are some who still hanker for the Pinochet model of industrial relations, and long for the day Mark Serwotka and Len McCluskey are safely incarcerated in the bowels of Wembley stadium. But beyond the confines of the Carlton Club, and the odd reunion of former members of the Blair cabinet, that remains a minority view. Even Margaret Thatcher stopped short of making membership of a trade union a proscribed activity (though it was touch and go).
Legitimacy does not, of course, equal respect or empathy. And the charge sheet frequently levelled against the modern trade union movement is a lengthy one. Its leaders are aloof autocrats, out of touch with their memberships. Their agenda is divisive and political, shaped by dreams of a Marxist-Leninist utopia. They exist solely to sow the seeds of economic and social unrest. Plus Bob Crow wears a very silly hat.
OK, the RMT leader’s choice of headwear has no defence. And the trade union movement has been guilty of some spectacular own goals, some of which, while working for the GMB, I side-footed home myself. But next Wednesday will not be one of them.
“I'm so angry union bosses are ordering millions of public sector workers to strike next week,” David Cameron told the Sun. This slightly synthetic outpouring may make for good copy and sound politics. But it also represents wishful thinking on the part of the Prime Minister.
Britain’s trade union leaders aren’t having to force their members to the barricades. If anything they’ve been struggling to keep them in check. "Even if we wanted to hold back the members, we couldn't," said one trade union insider. "We're having to do everything we can to keep from being left behind."
The depth and breadth of this anger is underlined by the names of the unions participating in next week’s action. The Chartered society of Physiotherapy. The Society of Radiographers. The First Division Association. The National Association of Headteachers. Next Wednesday’s strikes aren’t being led by the angry brigade. They’re being fronted by Sir Humphrey and Mr Chips.
Despite what some on the right fear, and some on the left hope, this is not a return to the militancy of the 1980s. Indeed by recent standards, next week’s protests will be positively restrained. There will be no street theatre. High tea at Fortnum and Mason will not be interrupted, nor the Cenotaph defiled. This is because the TUC have been careful to shun the hotheads and fellow travellers calling for the pensions issue to be subsumed beneath a general and incoherent assault on the Government. In fact the unions most heinous tactic will probably turn out to be the release of their solidarity record “Let’s Work Together”.
Nor, despite efforts by ministers to hang next Wednesday’s action around Ed Miliband’s neck, is this essentially a political dispute. It’s a good old fashioned dust up about pay and conditions. Or specifically what the TUC is calling the “Triple Squeeze” on public sector pensions; namely the shift in calculating uprating from RPI to CPI, the increase in individual contributions and the proposed increase in the retirement ceiling.
Some may see these as perfectly sensible changes, which reflect modern economic and social realities. That’s a matter for debate. But what’s not debatable is they mean an erosion of the existing pension entitlements of public sector workers. And however moderate or far sighted, trade union general secretaries get paid to improve their members conditions, not sit idly by as they decline. Again, some may question why trade unionists should expect better pension provision than the rest of the population. But that’s the whole point of collective bargaining; to obtain better terms collectively than you can individually.
There’s also another important element to next Wednesday’s proposed strike action. It’s already working. We know this because David Cameron told us it is. “What is on offer is an extremely reasonable deal," he told prime minister’s questions, including lower and middle income earners getting a larger pension than now, existing accrued rights being fully protected and any worker within 10 years of retirement seeing no change to retirement age, or payment. “It’s a tragedy,” he added, “the party opposite refuses to condemn these strikes”.
Condemn them? If Labour’s leader could wring concessions like that from the coalition the Durham Miners’ Gala would be renamed the Ed Miliband Appreciation Ball.
Britain’s trade union leaders have become accustomed to accusations of industrial recklessness. They will face them again next week. But this time they march to the picket lines with their membership broadly united, a cause they feel is just and a government seemingly in a mood to compromise.
The height of irresponsibility? Hardly. From the unions' perspective it’s the most responsible course of action they’ve taken for some time.
