Zombies of the state?
George Gale
'It's time now that we were given the chance to be unions in our own right, rather than continue being zombies of the state.' Joe Gormley, President of the National Union of Mineworkers, Blackpool, 30 September, 1978.
We have become accustomed to the view that the unions possess great power, and it is true that the organisation of modern indus trial economies confers upon many groups of workers the ability, through strike action, to inflict great damage. We sometimes see that power used — and more and more groups of workers are prepared to do so in order to further their own ends, whatever the consequences to the rest of us. Governments have feared to place legal restr ictions upon trade unions and their officers, presumably because of the need, as governments have seen it, to placate the unions.
Thus the unions now are seen to enjoy two different kinds of power: a power to wreck the economy, and a power to prevent gov ernments from infringing their privileges. They are also thought to enjoy a third power, which is to influence government policy generally. When a Labour government is in office, this third power has even an institutional base through the ability of the unions to dominate Labour party conferences and thus influence Labour party policies. Even with a Conservative government, however, the unions will, as a matter of course, be consulted and be taken account of, as befits their role as a powerful estate of the realm.
How real are these powers? Trade unions certainly have the power, through strike action, to damage the economy and to cause great inconvenience and even hardship to the community at large. People who are not party to a dispute are made to suffer, and these sufferings are intended to work to the benefit of trade union members. Strike action, which began as a weapon directed against employers to improve the wages and conditions of their employees, has now become a weapon more often than not directed against the public, or the government, or both. Today we see the power of the unions to inflict economic damage demonstrated by the Ford strikers, and the power of the unions to inflict inconvenience and suffering on the public demonstrated by a whole series of industrial disputes with the National Health Service.
The power to strike, and the power of strikes, cannot be disputed. These are wrecking powers. What of the other kinds of power: the power to protect their privileges, and the power to influence governments? The former power inheres in the latter. That latter power is best seen when there is a Labour government and at a time when its institutional base is in evidence: which is this week, at Blackpool, at the Labour party conference. Before the conference began Joe Gormley emerged from a meeting with his delegates, and said : 'Mr James Callaghan may think he is on to an election winner. We think he is on a loser. After the vote goes against him on Monday he will have the whole of the Labour movement and the trade unions against the Government's policies.' The vote duly went against the Prime Minister on Monday. But did he change his policies on Tuesday? He did not, except to say that if his government could not have their way on wages, then the Chancellor would have to introduce monetary and fiscal measures instead; except to pay hypocritical tribute to great knowledge and authoritative voices raised against Government policies in the debate; and except to promise further urgent talks. 'Conference,' declared Michael Foot on television, 'does not dictate to the Government.' He is right. It is the Government which dictates, not to the conference: but to the people, and the people include the trade unions. The realisation of this makes Joe Gormley declare: 'It's time now that we were given the chance to be unions in our own right, rather than continue being zombies of the state.'
The unions are thus demanding powers they used to have and now have lost. What they want is the power to negotiate on behalf of their members. This is what trade unions are for, and this is why they possess the right, and the power, to strike. Incomes policy removes that power from the unions and instead instructs them and the employers on the terms of their negotiations. What the Labour government, led by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has done is to remove from the trade unions the chief justification for their existence. It is thus not in the least surprising that having put up with Stages One, Two and Three, the unions should have baulked at Stage Four and have determined to stop any further talk of Stage Five. The unions have come to their senses, in short, and have realised that if they do not watch out, the Government will have taken over from them their negotiating role _at precisely the time when they, the unions, were popularly supposed to be at the height of their excessive powers.
The unions have therefore voted the Government's policies down, and thrown them out. That is, they have thrown them out at Blackpool. But it is not at Blackpool that the Government's policies are decided. It is in Whitehall. And Whitehall's White Paper, which the Prime Minister flourished in the faces of the delegates at Blackpool, praising its good Treasury English, is not voted down, is not thrown out. For a week in Blackpool the unions' block votes give them a whiff of power along with the sea air. But after they have done singing the Red Flag, and have put away their conference papers and recovered from their hangovers, come Monday, back home, they will revert to being zombies of the state.
And if anyone thinks that Joe Gormley's phrase is a little over-dramatic, he could do worse than read the official guidance issued to civil servants on how they should interpret the Government's pay policy. Last week the Times performed a very notable ' public service in securing a copy of this confidential document and publishing it in full, all fifty-five of its good Treasury Enl five English. 'These notes,' it begins, 'are designed to fgilfitY clirify for officials conducting pay negotiations, or giving advice to negotiators in the public and private sectors, the intentions behind the policy set out in the White Paper.' It is, in its bureaucratic way, a most sinister document, making it quite specific how tightly controlled the officials conducting negotiations or advising negotiators are; and if the officials are thus controlled, so too, in the Government's intent, are all other negotiators. The document preserves constitutional propriety by declaring 'These notes do not, and cannot, add to or detract from the policy set out in the White Paper. Each case must ultimately be determined by reference to the White Paper. It is important not to circumscribe Ministers' disoretion in dealing with cases on that basis'; but 'save as indicated, the points made in these notes may be freely deployed in conducting negotiations or giving advice.' The Notes admit that the TUC and the CBI are in no way committed to the policy and add, 'It can however be pointed out that they subscribe to the general objective of containing inflation and protecting jobs and that the White Paper sets out the measures that are, in the Government's judgment, required to meet that objective.' The White Paper insisted upon negotiators keeping to an annual settlement date, but contained the sentence: 'There may be an exceptional case where a highly-fragmented bargaining situation needs to be rationalised.' The Notes put it differently: The exceptional case of a highly-fragmented bargaining positiOn which needs to be rationalised (not just desirable) is not expected to apply to anyone except British Leyland.' This is the only piece of flexibility in the entire document. The flavour of them can be easily tasted: 'The costing of improvements in non-pay benefits should in all cases be cleared with the DE (Department of Employment)'; 'No anomaly or other pay problem which is in principle capable of being alleviated (even is only progressively) by the operation of the "kitty principle' will qualify for excep tional treatment'; and 'Employers are advised against any commitments for the Period after 31 July, 1979: It would be tedious to quote more. These 'notes' are in fact a very tight and inflexible interpretation of the five per cent pay policy. They are tantamount to regulations Which do away completely with any kind of free collective bargaining, and which also do away with what the White Paper likes to call 'responsible collective bargaining' which 'must preserve an orderly pattern of settlements.' Note the word must. Who says so? The Government. There is no law to this effect.
The White Paper is not an Act of Parliament. These Notes are written by a bureaucrat at a minister's behest. Yet, by the use of sanction's, and because a five per cent limit will suit a lot of employers, the Government and its bureaucrats are enabled to give the White Paper and the Notes virtually the force of law. It is because of this that union negotiators are turned into zombies of the state. A zomby, my dictionary tells me, is in West Indian superstition, 'a supernatural power through which a corpse may be brought to a state of trancelike animation and obey the commands of the person exercising the power', and 'a corpse, so animated.' The corpses of trade union negotiators were animated enough at Blackpool this week: but corpses they are, and will remain, as long as we have White Papers and Notes which take away from them their powers of negotiation. Without those powers, they lose all purpose, and all authority over their members. They become lifeless, They knew this at Blackpool. In a very real sense the unions there were fighting for their lives. That is why they voted against the Government, even if it should mean the death of that Government.
Previous page
