The article wasn’t a comment on the appropriateness of the State paying for the send off of a former Prime Minister, but an observation that a group that quite regularly issues apoplectic press releases drawing attention to whatever it regards as an inappropriate use of ‘taxpayers’ money (almost everything in case you’re wondering) appeared to have nothing to say about how the costs of the late Lady Thatcher’s funeral were being met.

So a hat tip is due therefore to journalist Ally Fogg who yesterday produced the following list of things the TPA has, and hasn’t, commented on since April 1st this year.  It makes the point about the farce that is the TPA’s supposed political independence much more powerfully than my article could ever have hoped to.  Let’s just hope the media, and the BBC in particular, are paying attention.

THINGS THE TAXPAYERS ALLIANCE HAVE HAD AN OPINION ON SINCE APRIL 1ST

• Business rates on empty buildings
• Prison gymnasiums
• Prison therapy programmes
• Prisoner rehabilitation programmes
• Prisoners’ access to legal aid
• Prisoners’ access to air freshener
• The Bedroom Tax
• Rise in the tax threshold
• The Health and Social Care Act
• The Welfare Reform Bill
• GLA staff internet browsing history
• MPs expenses tribunals
• Cosmetic surgery on the NHS
• Working trips by the Science and Technology Facilities Council
• International Development spending
• Housing benefit for prisoners on remand
• Sentences for benefit fraud
• Compensation payments for injured children
• Scrapping the development of a police computer
• A grant to KPMG to set up a Glasgow office
• The Cyprus bailout
• Welsh councils’ spending on gifts for guests
• Refreshments at meetings with Mayor Rahman
• Demolition of derelict homes in Stoke
• University Vice Chancellors’ pay
• Medical negligence law suits
• Accident at work compensation
• Fitting council vehicles with GPS
• The appropriate number of children for people on benefits
• Gagging clauses for BBC executives
• A subsidised bar in Whitehall
• Charges for green waste collection
• Windfarms in the South Pacific
• Decisions of the Financial Services Authority
• Councillors’ pensions
• Advice offered by NHS Online
• Headteachers attending conferences
• Trainee doctors’ wages
• Health support for obese children
• The BBC iPlayer
• The BBC’s disciplinary procedures
• The Youth Police and Crime Commissioner Paris Brown
• Gender realignment surgery
  and…
• The stuffing of William Hague’s snake

THINGS THE TAXPAYERS ALLIANCE HAVE NOT HAD AN OPINION ON SINCE APRIL 1ST

• The cost of Margaret Thatcher’s ceremonial funeral

Union members march in Cheltenham in 1989 in protest at the union ban for  workers at GCHQ.

Reading the tributes to the late Baroness Thatcher, it doesn’t take long to get to what her supporters clearly regard as one of her main achievements; standing up to and ‘defeating’ the trades unions.

If you were unbiased and went purely on the statistics you might agree that’s exactly what she did.  Union membership in 1979 stood at around 12 million and more than half of the workforce was in a union. Today, there are half the number of unions members that there were when Mrs Thatcher moved into Number 10, and union density is now around 26%.

But if you took a broader view and asked if she succeeded in creating a country where unions no long existed or were even needed then you might come to a different conclusion.

The trade union movement remains the largest voluntary organisation in the country, which still every day, makes work – and life beyond the workplace – better for millions of people.

The paradox of Margaret Thatchers policies is that whilst proclaiming the illegitimacy and irrelevance of unions they actually reinforced the need for collective representation of working people.  As our General Secretary Frances O’Grady has pointed out, the attack on unions was in effect an attack by proxy on equality and social justice. It made Britain a much more unequal nation.  A legacy that we have still to address.

The more reflective commentators on the political Left have observed that despite Margaret Thatcher’s passing, the political creed to which she gave her name remains with us.  They’re correct; Thatcherism is unfortunately alive and well, but so – thankfully – is trade unionism.

A policeman hits out at a protestor at Orgreave in 1984. Photo John Harris, via TUC Library Collections

The TUC is supporting an E-Petition, set up by The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, which is seeking truth and justice for all miners victimised by the police at the Orgreave Coking Plant, South Yorkshire, on June 18th 1984.

The petition says that Orgreave is part of a pattern of cover ups by the police from many different forces, which are now being exposed.   A similar petition formed part of the campaign which led to the truth about Hillsborough finally being revealed last year.

The Orgreave petition calls for a full public inquiry into the policing and subsequent statements recorded by the police at the time, to be held as soon as possible.

The petition and campaign  has the support of mining unions and the TUC urges all unions to encourage their members to sign the petition, which if it reaches the 100,000 target by November 13, should prompt a Commons debate.

The petition can be signed on line at: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/41844

Jane Warburton (PCS) former Vice Chair of the Young Members Forum speaks at the Conference

Over 100 young trade unionists came together in London at the weekend for the annual TUC Young Members Conference.

In a week in which it was announced that youth unemployment had increased and is again nearing 1 million, the conference was dominated by the impact of the government’s austerity polices on young people.  In addition to youth unemployment, motions on fair pay for young workers, housing, pensions and access to quality work experience were also debated.

As well as discussing motions submitted by TUC unions, delegates at the conference also attended workshops on effective local campaigning, working with Student Unions and Credit Unions.

Delegates also heard about plans to put the TUC Young Members Forum on a campaign footing and also make the way it operates the work it does more inclusive.  Future meetings of the Young Workers Forum (as it will be called after ratification by the TUC General Council) will be held in TUC regions and will be open to all young workers, regardless of whether they are in a union.

You can read about the Young Members Conference as it was tweeted here.  And see a great report from the conference by UnionNews here

Unions and the TUC have pushed back against these attacks by rebutting the figures published in the Taxpayers Alliance dodgy dossiers and demonstrating the valuable contribution that union reps make in modern workplaces; one that benefits both employees and employers in the public AND private sectors.

To help reps become even more effective in their efforts to retain the ability to represent members and play a full and meaningful part in workplace industrial relations and the life of their union, the TUC has developed a new on-line training and briefing resource.

The materials will help you understand the legal position of reps when it comes to paid time off, argue effectively against attacks on facility time and update your current agreements.  They will be of use to reps working in both the public and private sectors.

These excellent new resources can be accessed at the link below.  Before you can use them you’ll need to register as a user which only takes a minute or so.

www.tuceducation.org.uk/facilitytime

This was my contribution to the Unions21 Fair Work Commission first report

This short contribution has one aim; to clearly and unequivocally make the case for the ability of strong and effective trade unions to make work, and indeed society in general, fairer.

This is a case that needs to be made because worryingly amongst certain parts of the ‘progressive’ policy making community there is something of a cultural cringe about trade unions that prevents their full potential being talked about, let alone given serious consideration.

The case can be made by considering two key areas; firstly the way unions via collective bargaining increase fairness at work as measured by better pay and conditions, access to training and improved workplace democracy and secondly, the benefits accruing to both union members and employers as a result of the work of workplace union representatives.

A recent article in the Industrial Relations Journal by Willie Brown and Chris Wright sets out the benefits of collective bargaining to both unions and employers.  For unions, it provides recognition and an opportunity to secure for their members a fairer deal in respect of pay and other terms and conditions.

For employers collective bargaining, particularly across sectors, removes employment conditions and in particular pay, from competition. It also creates a more stable employer/employee relationship and provides opportunities for both parties to develop further mutually beneficial joint approaches in respect of training and higher standards of productivity.

These benefits also extend beyond the workplace. Research for the TUC carried out by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research found that the union role in collective bargaining is a vital tool for reducing inequality in society as a whole.

At first, the increase in inequality that occurred in the two decades after 1979 and the decline in union density and collective bargaining over the same period could be seen as merely coincidental.  But it is after comparisons are made with other countries that a link between collective bargaining coverage and income equality can be made. In the mid 2000s, of the 23 OECD countries with lower levels of income in equality than the UK, 19 had higher levels of collective bargaining coverage.

This ‘sword of justice’ effect associated with union recognition is evidenced by the more favourable pay and conditions enjoyed by employees in unionised workplaces.

The same NIESR research found that on average union members were better paid and had better sickness and pension benefits, more holiday and more flexible working hours than non-members.  Union members were also less vulnerable to the impact of unfair dismissal and pay discrimination and had better access to learning, skills and training opportunities.

Of course the people who deliver the benefits of trade union membership in its most practical form are workplace union representatives.  It is what they do that has the biggest impact on how members rate the relevance and the effectiveness of the union of which they are a member.

They represent what might be considered the trade union movement’s unique selling point; employees representing and supporting each other individually, collectively and most crucially, independent of the employer.   The work that these elected volunteers carry out benefits employers as well as employees.

In 2007, the then Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (now BIS) conducted a review of the facilities and facility time available to workplace representatives.  As well as the cost of facility time, the review calculated the value of the benefits that accrued from the work that reps carried out.

Based on the savings resulting from lower dismissal rates, reduced recruitment costs as a result of less people leaving voluntarily, less employment tribunal cases and better workplace health and safety, the review calculated that in the range of £372m pa to £977m pa in savings made. Due in no small part to the presence and work of union representatives.  These were figures based on 2004 prices and inflation, updated in 2010 they come out at between £267m pa to £701m pa

The government would understandably laud any other group of volunteers whose work made such a positive impact, but of course union representatives and particularly those in the public sector have been subjected to a sustained, ideologically motivated attack by the political right.

A clear line can be drawn from the Taxpayers Alliance (TPA) and their dodgy dossiers claiming to reveal the cost of facility time to the ‘taxpayer’, to the establishment of the deceptively named Trade Union Reform Campaign (TURC) – essentially a front group for anti-union Tory back bench MPs  - and the recent Cabinet Office consultation on Facility Time in the Civil Service.

This consultation, which disgracefully accepted submissions from both the TPA and TURC, effectively cut the amount of paid time off for reps in the civil service by half, via the introduction of a guide figure on the proportion of the pay bill that could be used to cover facility time.

The problem with this attack on reps in the civil service, which has not surprisingly been taken as a starting gun for similar attacks in the rest of the public sector, is that as well as delegitimising and stigmatising the role of workplace union representatives, it will deprive employers of a valuable workplace resource and of course result in workplaces that are less fair.

Using this evidence of the huge contribution that unions make towards creating a better and fairer society there is no excuse for policy makers both within and outside the trade union movement not to speak with more confidence about how this role can be extended.

Employees are certainly supportive of it. When asked by Unions21 if they would support the Government encouraging the setting of wage levels in sectors between employer and employee representatives, over half of respondents said that would and and a significant proportion thought that this would result in fairer pay.

There is a increasing intellectual weight behind the idea of unions having a wider role in the regulation of labour standards.  This was a key feature of the Unions 21 publication ‘Extending Collective Bargaining: Extending Union Influence’ published last year and was been given added substance recently in an excellent article in the Industrial Relations Journal written by William Brown, Professor of Industrial Relations at Cambridge University  and ex-TUC staff member Chris Wright (now a Research Fellow in the Faculty of Business and Economics at Macquarie University, Sydney).

In addition to extending the reach of unions we must also continue to defend and promote the role of union representatives.  This can be most effectively achieved by opening a new debate on industrial democracy.

Notably, and significantly, absent from the attacks on paid time off for unions reps has been the voice of employers. This is most likely because employers see on day to day basis the valuable  contribution that union reps make to ensuring a efficient and stable HR/industrial relations environment.

A few years ago this employer support was demonstrated in a pamphlet ‘Reps in Action’ published jointly by the TUC, CBI and BiS.  If we can persuade the CBI to spend less time trying to redraw the basic rules and principles of democracy in respect of strike and recognition ballots and instead focus once again on supporting a resource that increases workplace efficiency, productivity, fairness and general well being, then we might just succeed in fending off the attacks from the TPA and others on the right wing fringe.

A key TUC campaign this year will be based on increasing industrial democracy. This obviously starts with union membership and recognition, continues with workplace union representatives and extends naturally to an employee voice on company boards.

This idea is attracting growing support from employees. When asked in a Unions21 poll if they supported having a workforce representative on company boards, over 70 percent of employees said they did.  Over half of the respondents went on to say that the proportion of seats on company boards reserved for workforce reps should be between 10 and 20 per cent.

The approaches to extending union influence that I have here covered should not however be seen as a replacement for the difficult but essential task of workplace organising; It’s only through day to day contact with and involvement in the activities of the union that workers can achieve the full potential of trade union membership. But they can make a significant contribution to the debate on how we make work better and society less unequal.

The TUC, under our new General Secretary will over he next year and beyond bring renewed purpose and energy to this task.  We know that our affiliates are up for the fight too. After all, ensuring the fair and equitable treatment of workers and creating a society based on equality and social justice is what trade unions were invented to do.

The first report from the Unions21 Fair Work Commission can be downloaded here. 

I don’t know if Conservatives hate or fear unions.  It could even be both.  How else to explain the latest planned attack on workplace democracy as reported in the Independent on Friday? We know that lots of people on the political right can’t cope with the fact that workers aren’t always inclined to put up with attacks on their jobs, terms and conditions and sometimes want to fight back.

That’s why its hardly surprising that the union haters on the Tory benches in Parliament and who populate the right wing fringe groups posing as think tanks want to make it more difficult for workers to go on strike by subverting the basic principles of democracy. The plan is apparently to introduce turnout thresholds in strike ballots either in relation to the overall turnout or the percentage voting for a strike.

The political intent of this is demonstrated by the fact that those calling for thresholds for industrial action ballots seem quite happy to grant legitimacy to other elections where there’s been less that popular support for the winner.

So lets hope for the sake of decency none of the Tories elected as Police Commissioners last year – average national turnout 15% – support such a move.  We might also expect the same of Tory MEPs – national turn out in the 2009 Euro elections 34% .

It’s highly likely however that this campaign against democracy will be able to count on the support of the current Mayor of London; despite him being re-elected last year with less than 50% of both first and second preference votes and on a turnout of 38%.

And let’s not forget that the party behind all of this received the support of just 36% of the electorate at the last General Election.

Certainly the least that could be said is that these elected representatives have a less convincing mandate than, for example, Unite did when it  balloted its tanker drivers (69% in favour of as strike on a 77% turnout) and its BA cabin crew (72% turnout).

Of course I’m being selective but so are the union haters when they cite low turnouts.  The difference is that strikes don’t always take place when turnouts are low and support for them (at least in the ballot) is limited.  But we are of course stuck with politicians and the decisions they make even when the majority of the electorate vote against them or not at all.

We’re not even going through a period where there is a particularly high level of industrial unrest. The recent Workplace Employment Relations Study found that only 4% of workplaces experienced a strike in the 12 months prior to the survey. I should also add that UK unions already operate within one of the most restrictive legal frameworks in Europe.

You’d expect the organisation that represents employers to reflect the state of industrial relations as it really exists and not as its imagined by the Tory far right, but on this issue at least the CBI appears more than happy to join in with the extremists.

In a speech last year the CBI’s Deputy Director General called for a threshold test to ensure strikes always have 40% support of the membership AND a majority of those who actually vote.  And for good measure, the organisation that we frequently hear railing against red tape also called for statutory recognition ballots every three years to ensure that unions retain the support of their members.  Obviously the proportion of employees who are members of the union isn’t good enough for the CBI.

It’s easy to see that what is developing is not a defence of democracy or attempt to establish workplace harmony.  It is in fact the exact opposite: an attack on basic democratic principles and even human rights.  It comes from the same distorted ideology that says making it easier to sack workers and making workplaces less safe creates jobs.

If the CBI and others are genuinely interested in good industrial relations they would be better off joining unions and the TUC in calling for practical policies that grow the economy and create quality jobs rather than backing ideologically motivated measures that undermine the basic employment and human rights of workers.

Trades unionists march during the national strike to defend public service pensions on 30 November 2011.

The excellent Unison Active blog has picked up on an interesting debate going on in the US labour movement that has some relevance for unions in the UK; to what extent is union density and membership linked to union power and influence?

It’s obvious that to establish relevance and legitimacy unions need to increase membership, so in many ways the more interesting discussion – apart from how unions can most effectively increase membership and density – is about how unions turn membership into power and influence.

The first and most obvious way that unions do this is securing recognition with employers by organising. The second is through mobilisation of members (or potential members) in support of a particular issue. In addition to these ‘ground war’ strategies, unions can also seek power via an ‘air war’ approach; seeking to influence decision makers via high level interventions in the policy making process and through political alliances and affiliations.

Organisers know that whilst these are all legitimate approaches that in an effective union will all be in play simultaneously, it is the ‘ground war’ strategies that really speak to the unique role that unions play in the workplace and beyond.

On the crowded field of pressure groups, think tanks and professional lobbyists it is this link to real people in the world of work as it actually is, rather than as it’s imagined in the Westminster Village that makes the union voice particularly relevant.

How we recruit workers into the union obviously has an impact on our ability to mobilise members when the need arises. The advice and representation that we provide to individual workers will always be an important part of the union offer, however it is important to strike a balance.

If we get the balance wrong and place too much emphasis on a role as service providers and regard members as ‘clients’ then we are diminished and our ability to mobilise members becomes harder. Unions have always been (and must remain) more than this. Members are not just clients but key participants in the life of the union; indeed they are the real source of union power. And unions themselves have to be agents of ‘social action’ not just providers of a ‘social service’.

A good way of seeing the link between membership, mobilisation and the ability of unions to deliver for members, is considering our organisational capacity alongside our leverage. These are the core elements of union “Strategic Choice” developed by David Weil of Boston University and a way of developing union growth strategies that is being used by an increasing number of unions in the UK.

Organisational capacity takes into account the link between officers and activists and union headquarters and regions; the openness to innovation and new ideas (including real support for organising) within the union, the development of new activists and whether it can shift resources quickly to support new campaigns and initiatives.

Strategic leverage takes into account the external environment; the political and economic context, the nature of the labour market, the organisation of work and public awareness of and attitudes towards unions.

The main contention of strategic choice is that before a union can increase its leverage it must improve its organisational capacity. In short, without members that we can mobilise into action the ability of unions to influence key decision makers over the medium and long term will be compromised.

Of course there’s a lot more to Strategic Choice than this, as the unions with whom the TUC is currently working to develop their organising strategies are finding out. But even on its own, this consideration of capacity and leverage is important. It helps to establish how we recruit members and the extent to which we have the ability to put pressure on those whose decisions effect their lives and crucially, from where this leverage is produced.

At the TUC I have the privilege of working alongside some of the best policy officers around. They produce exceptional work that enhances the reputation of not just the TUC but trade unionism in general. But whist the force of our argument is and will remain a vital part of how unions gain influence, it is membership and our ability to mobilise that makes us a movement.

Young workers on the TUC’s A Future That Works March, Oct 20 2012. Photo: Paul Box

The statistic that usually troubles me the most when the trade union membership stats are published each year is the one for density amongst young workers (those aged between 16 and 24). Last year the figure was 8%. There are many reasons why membership amongst this group of workers – some of the poorest paid and most vulnerable to exploitation – is so low. I could entertain you for hours talking about these and in particular the lack of ‘transmission methods’ (or probably not).

The list of reasons might be long but it wouldn’t include the one that is most often trotted out. This says that the main reason for low union membership amongst young workers is that they are ‘Thatcher’s generation’. I’ve never bought this. The suggestion that something entered the gene pool around May 1979 that made those born after this date genetically disinclined towards unions has always struck me as somewhat defeatist and pretty ridiculous.

That’s not to say we don’t have an image problem amongst young people – we do! Although it would be more accurate to say that amongst the vast majority of young people we have no image whatsoever – good or bad.

This speaks to the (real) main reason why so few working young people are union members. Quite simply, in the kinds of workplaces and sectors in which many young people work, or at least get their first job, there is no union to join.

The best rebuttal of the ‘Thatcher’s generation’ argument is to look at the performance of unions recruiting young people in workplaces where the union is well organised. Unions across a range of sectors have demonstrated that if the union is present and active in a workplace then it’s no more difficult to get young people join than their older colleagues.

So we have to be more imaginative in how we reach out and allow young workers to hear about unions – who we are, what we do and the way that they can be used to campaign on the issues that they care about.

The traditional response to ‘engaging young people’ in a range of organisations (not just unions) is to establish young members’ structures. Whilst I have nothing against these, all too often they simply recreate the traditional ways of working (committees/conferences) that exist elsewhere in the organisation. The only real difference being that young people fill the positions usually held by the oldies.

The problem with this is that at its worst – and particularly in political parties – this way of ‘engaging young people’ creates an almost professionalised ‘young activist’ who has about as much in common with the majority of their peers as people much older.

Fortunately union young members structures have done a lot more to freshen up the issues unions prioritise and crucially, the campaign tactics they use. As a result they’ve had a positive impact on the number of young existing members who get active in the union. But across the movement they’ve perhaps been underused in reaching out to the majority of young workers who work where there is no union for them to join.

I’ve written elsewhere about how unions and the TUC might create a pathway into union membership, particularly for young workers; but there is more that we can do to raise the profile of unions amongst young people.

I’m often told by union officers and activists that unions need to ‘get into schools’ to promote unions to young people. Although briefing school students about unions wont on its own increase membership amongst young workers, they’re correct – this is important work.

The good news is that we’ve never been so well equipped to do this. The TUC’s Unions into Schools resources provide teachers and activists with all they need to tell the story of unions and make the case for our continued, and increased, relevance.

Unfortunately they remain some of the most under used resources in the movement. So we need a collective effort to increase awareness and most importantly, the delivery of these excellent materials.

The TUC Young Members Forum is the voice of young workers in the TUC. It’s fair to say that over recent years it’s not had the profile it should, particularly given the impact of the government’s austerity agenda on young people.

That’s why in the run up to this year’s Young Members Conference the Forum will be reviewing how it works and considering ways that it can improve its capacity to run effective campaigns that have an identifiable young workers imprint.

It will be looking how to extend participation in the Forum – perhaps by holding ‘open forum’ meetings combined with campaign action training in TUC regions to which any young worker or organisation representing young people could be invited to attend.

The Forum will also consider how it can sharpen up its campaign activity; perhaps by choosing two or three ‘priority campaigns’ each year into which it can put all of its energy.

And there may even be a case for a rebrand. Renaming itself the TUC Young WORKERS Forum would be a small change that could send a bigger message; that it wants to involve and speak for ALL young workers.

These would be admittedly small changes that in no way match the scale of the challenge. But if along with the work carried out by TUC affiliates, they contribute towards creating a sense of urgency and purpose that stimulates a fresh ‘whole movement’ approach to increasing membership amongst young workers, they would be well worth it.

In his excellent book “Don’t Think of an Elephant”, US cognitive linguist George Lakoff describes the use by American conservatives of what he calls ‘strategic initiatives’. Lakoff defines a strategic initiative as a plan “in which a change in one carefully chosen issue area has automatic effects over many other issue areas”.

Lakoff provides two examples to illustrate his point. Firstly tax cuts. There aren’t many people who oppose all tax cuts. Most arguments tend to swirl around who gets them and how much is cut. The political right (on both sides of the Atlantic) usually argues for tax cuts on the basis that people should be allowed to keep more of the money that they earn so that they (rather than the government) can decide how to spend it.

However if you’re a political conservative and want to shrink the size of government and limit what it can do, cutting taxes also serves a much more fundamental purpose. It starves the government of the resources it needs to spend on a whole range of services and programmes. Hey presto! You’ve cuts taxes AND reduced the size of the government.

Another example are reforms to reduce compensation payments resulting from successful legal actions against corporations – long campaigned for by US conservatives.

The most obvious objective of this strategic initiative is to limit the potential liabilities of corporations who as a result of negligence harm people or the environment. But reduced payouts also reduce the fees that the lawyers of successful plaintiffs receive. Why is this relevant? Well, the biggest single group of donors to the Democratic Party in individual states is lawyers who handle these corporate negligence cases.

So, reducing the liabilities of corporations eventually reduces campaign contributions to the Democratic Party reducing its capacity to campaign effectively in a political system where cash is king.

Of course, the British right uses strategic initiatives too and there’s one in full swing now that has particular relevance for trade unionists; the attack on paid time off for employee representatives. Why do the British right care about this so much that it sometimes appears that for some Tory MPs it is THE big issue in British politics?

The pretence for this strategic initiative is again concern for tax payers money; that in a period of cuts to public spending (which incidentally is the mother of strategic initiatives) it’s wrong for tax payer’s money to pay for trade union officials (by the way, please excuse me if I refrain on this occasion from saying exactly why these arguments are utterly dishonest – you can read my past rebuttals of this nonsense here and here).

But to identify the real objective of this initiative we need only look at what would happen if the Right was successful in getting rid of facility time.

Firstly, employees would lose what they value most when they are members of a union; having someone at their place of work that is trained to represent them individually and collectively. This would leave employees exposed to the worst that poor employers would do and with little or any ability to enforce whatever rights they have.

So in the same way that the US right wants to limit liabilities of potentially negligent corporations, British conservatives are seeking to give British employers the ability to treat workers how they want with little chance of redress.

But there’s more. Obviously no responsible union would let their members go unprotected so they would be forced to shift resources to effectively back fill the workplace reps that they’ve lost. And from where would they get this money. Well, it may differ from union to union, but political funds and party affiliations may well come under pressure.

So as well as reducing the chances of bad employers being held to account and reducing the ability of employees to protect themselves, you also reduce the ability of unions to campaign politically and ultimately deprive your main political opponent of an important source of funding; the perfect strategic initiative.