I believe that the left is at an important moment in its history. What has happened in Falkirk is a mere side show: I will discuss what is more important later. But first I want to, rather shamelessly, reproduce part of the Observer's editorial yesterday because I think it made an essential point which it is important to note, which is that we need strong trade unions in this country is we are to ever restore national well-being. They said:
Effective trade unions are vital components of a strong economy and a vigorous society. Today their weakness is hindering economic recovery. There will be no sustained increase in consumer spending without a rise in real wages, together with the confidence among consumers that these gains are durable. Innovative companies need confident customers whose wages are rising to buy their goods and services, allowing them to break into the virtuous circle of more production, technical innovation and greater spending.
Nor do the positive effects of unions stop there. Efficiency and productivity in the workplace are also closely linked to high trust and trust comes best between partners who are sure they will be heard. Disorganised, atomistic workforces, where workers are disposable commodities always fearful of being sacked, whose voice is neglected or ignored, are mistrustful and low-productivity places, particularly where an employer requires his or her staff to think on their own.
Unions are part of our social glue. When they work well, they are sites of social interaction, a place where men and women can socialise. Much of our social contact is at work. Unions help make that a reality. It is no accident that Germany and the Nordic countries have strong trade unions, as well as durable economies, resilient societies and a thriving middle class. What is becoming obvious in both Britain and the US is that weak trade unionism in the private sector has undermined middle-class incomes. Everyone but the top 1% has been dragged down by the relentless assault on people's living standards.
For three decades, the very idea of unionism has been under assault. The doctrine has been that the more workers are on their own, and the more managers are free to hire and fire them at will, then the better everyone will be. The baleful results are everywhere to see. Profits are at a postwar high as a share of GDP and wages at a postwar low. The average wage would be £7,000 a year higher if wages represented the same share of GDP as they did a generation ago when unions were stronger.
We were told that this would be the recipe for an investment boom. Instead, companies are hoarding their profits and withholding investment, while workers are having their wages squeezed. Britain ranks 159th in the international league table for investment as a share of GDP. Meanwhile, by the next election, in 2015, real wages on average will be 10 % lower than in 2010. Britain is locked in a vicious circle of minimal investment and innovation because of uncertain demand, while ever more insecure workplaces are delivering falling real wages and even more uncertain demand.
We need stronger trade unions that can bargain for higher wages across whole industries. The phasing out of free collective bargaining has proved an economic and social mistake. It needs to be reversed. We now need to make the case for unionism, free collective bargaining, good work and higher wages as enthusiastically and vigorously as possible.
I am unambiguously sure that is right for the sake of everyone, union member or not, middle income or lower income, employed or unemployed, in the 99% and actually (because equality increases the prosperity of all) in the 1% too.
Over coming weeks, months, and years, it is vital that we remember that.
And yes, I do disclose that I work for trade unions, because I believe in them.
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We do need trades unions: we do not need the Labour party.
Yes, the ridiculous gap between management and ‘workforce’ is absolutely absurd and beyond the most gut-wrenching forms of disgust. The notion that wealth ‘trickles down’ is still paraded despite 30 years of evidence that it doesn’t. High levels of structural employment creating fear and passivity and a celebrity culture that has turned people into fawning oafs and servile brown-nosers has weakened resitance. The fact that CEO salaries have increased ten fold in real terms over the last 30 years speaks for itself. Hayek’s road to sefdom has been accomplished but by means he wouldn’t have suspected.
Well… not necessarily ‘trade’ unions but unions perhaps… otherwise what happens when basic incomes come in and many people choose not to work? Will there be a union for everyone who simply wants to receive the basic income? Perhaps implementing a basic income would remedy at least some of the problems suggested above. Wages could perhaps be kept lower if everyone was already on a basic income as they wouldn’t need it to cover the basic living costs as (if we ignore WTC fo the time being) they have to now. Then again it might be that since people could survive on a simple level without working, wages might have to be significantly higher than now to motivate people to work. It might also be that people will find a third option palatable, receiving only a little extra money by way of a wage but for doing work which fulfils them and they like. Hmmm… perhaps unions themselves are a bit retro now.
Bill – in my view, the biggest way we can spread wealth is ending the housing debt peonage fiasco. With housing removed from the speculators books and all incentive to see a house as an investment (which for most people is entirely a chimera) life would be affordable. people would realise with this millstone removed – they could live and breathe! Why is this never talked about? When one challenges the whole corrupt mortgage culture people look at you as if you’ve challenged a core religious belief, or maybe, after so many years of wasting their money they just can’t look at it objectively?
Then we should stop the banks charging interest on money they never had in the first place and couldn’t have created without a signature from a member of the public. It’s not rocket science but I’ve only ever seen Douglas Carswell propose this to a disinterested House of Commons. This is a core problem and it’s not even in the Overton Window.
I think there are Modern Monetary Theory people in America who want to straighten this out. Carswell makes a lot of sense and illustrates how the right (Cobden Centre, Von Mises Institue) overlap with the left in calling for a thorough restructuring of the financial sector. Banks have been inflating house prices for years and Governments have done diddly squat to hinder this (most M.P.’s probably have housing ‘portfolios’!) yet this factor is the very one that sucks wealth out of communities. It must stop, there are no more rungs on the imaginary housing ladder and people must wake up from that dream. Propery speculation is utterly evil as it vampirically sucks the life blood out of society.
Cameron’s comment “weak,weak,weak”, is a bit rich. His allegation is that unions are pursuing private advantage over the common good by attempting to capture a political party and so dictate govt. policy. They feign outrage. A ‘strong leader’ would not allow that!
Yet what do we see on the opposite side of the house? What most needed to happen after 2008 was a deep reform of the financial system and a limitation of the power of banks to create mountains of debt. That has been avoided and we have been distracted by the ‘imperative’ to reduce debt. As part of the means to that end the govt. has harried the less well off, held down public service salaries and increased the regressive VAT. Corporation tax has fallen by a sixth(?) in this Parliament.
The Conservatives have been largely captured by the City (half their funding). They have been too ‘weak’ to take on those vested interests.
The EU has always been keen on workers’ rights and has begun to try and regulate the financial sector. Well, some of the member states and people of the EU! And what do we see? It is now govt. policy to repatriate powers and hold a referendum on membership. A ‘clear in/out’ they say. The actual question should be 1) we leave altogether-all the EU organs 2) stay in 3) stay in the single market like Norway but withdraw from the other parts of the EU? Not a clear ‘in/out’. The referendum is an attempt to keep the peace inside the Tory party.
We see a clear example of the psychological process of people projecting what is disowned in themselves, onto another.
Or they are just lying about their motives!
If only the Labour party would shout out about Tory funding and how inhoc they are to finance/c orporate interest. Labour seems quite incapable of being an opposition.
With his latest idea (Ed Milliband: Individual members to opt-into the political levy)(Maggie did that years ago) he seems intent on destroying any link between those who work, and those who fiddle expenses.
Face it: Ed is not a socialist, he is another corporate-cash cowboy.
UNITE members voted on the political fund earlier in the year. They voted to retain it. Obviously, the union leadership may chose, now, to not contribute any to the labour party. Maybe they will chose to fund individual MPs’….maybe even tory MPs’
http://newsthump.com/2013/07/09/orville-to-break-historic-links-with-keith-harris/
At least th money from unions comes from working people, as opposed to that from hard-tax-avoiding-and-fiddling-business that goes to the slightly blue[er] party.
We all know what they get from the blueys in return: everything not nailed down.
In my experience of working in both unionised and non-unionised organisations, the staff in non-unionised trust the management more than in unions.
I believe this mistrust occurs largely due to the agitation of the union reps (both locally and nationally), in their permanent state of mistrust of the management, ie. “what are they up to now, grrr”. This passes through to members & other staff and therefore contributes to less productivity/innovation. It is also a key negative marketing ploy to the unions to attract more members, to basically scare people into becoming members, “or else this might happen to you…”.
In this day and age we don’t need the dinosaur unions (all incidentally and overwhelmingly led by middle-aged or older white males while trumpeting about diversity), at least not in their current form.
I was also recently approached by a UNISON rep to join as a member. One of the reasons I said I would not like to join is because I would not want to be indirectly funding the Labour party. They said that is not the case if I do not check the affiliation box on the form, but clearly from recent news that is the case for all members; the choice is simply whether you would like to directly or indirectly fund the Labour party!
That is not my experience
I have found it call comes down to people