Thirty years after Margaret Thatcher introduced sweeping reforms aimed at curbing the power of trade unions, Britain’s new Conservative government has organised labour in its sights once again. Under proposals unveiled yesterday, unions would have to give two weeks notice of strike action and employers would be allowed to take on temporary staff to break a strike. A vote to strike would need a minimum 50 per cent turnout, workers in key public services would be forbidden to strike unless at least 40 per cent of all those eligible to vote approved strike action and mandates for industrial action would have to be renewed within four months of the first ballot. Union members would have to individually opt in to pay the political levy some unions use to fund the Labour Party, a change that could dramatically damage the opposition party’s finances.
Strikes in Britain are at historically low levels but a number of recent disputes, such as strikes at London Underground, have inconvenienced the public and persuaded David Cameron’s government that further curbs on unions will be popular. Some of the reaction yesterday – such as train drivers’ union leader Mick Whelan’s claim that the bill “smacks of Germany in the 1930s” – was overblown. But by blunting the potential impact of the unions’ most potent weapon, strike action, the Bill will seriously diminish the power of organised labour. Weaker unions will mean less protection for workers, particularly the low paid, increasing income inequality. Indeed, Hillary Clinton suggested in a speech this week that the decline of unions in the United States could be responsible for up to a third of the rise in income inequality among American men.
Like George Osborne’s recent budget, which introduced radical changes to Britain’s welfare system, the union proposals reflect the political boldness of Cameron’s new government. While Labour flounders amid a lengthy, lacklustre leadership contest, the Conservatives are seizing the opportunity to make the political weather and to shift British society in their own ideological direction.