Despite significant and ongoing job losses in the public sector, union action on pensions – coupled  with a generally raised profile as unions have shown a lead against the government’s damaging austerity programme – has meant that membership appears to be holding steady and in some cases growing. But this is just one one small silver lining in what looks like an increasingly gloomy outlook for our members and their families. Union membership is not just an end in itself. Workers don’t organise for the sake of holding a union card: they organise to help protect their jobs; to ensure they get paid decently; to have access to pensions; to work somewhere that’s safe and healthy; to get a voice on the job; and to develop new skills and build their careers. There’s no doubt that delivering on all these points and more has got harder and harder. Even successful, highly profitable employers appear to be using the current economic crisis as cover cutting back on jobs, pay and pensions (see here and here for current and obvious examples).

It would be easy in this climate to seek solace in counsels of despair. But that’s not my style, and my guess is that if you are reading this blog, it’s not yours either. So I thought it was right to point out that despite all the difficulties, there is plenty of evidence that unions are still in there fighting, and most importantly winning for members. Here’s two very different private sector examples of what I mean.

Most of us grew up with Woolworths. Its record department and pick ‘n’ mix were the stuff of childhood legend, which is why so  many of us were shocked when over 800 Woolworth shops and outlets shut their doors at the end of 2008. But it wasn’t just memories that were lost when Woolies closed down – nearly 30,000 people lost their jobs when the company’s administrator pulled the plug. Since then USDAW has been trying to secure at least some justice for those thrown out of work – a long and protracted battle which finally resulted in this week’s news that 24,000 former Woolworth’s staff will share some £68m in compensation, awarded by a Tribunal who ruled that the administrator should have properly consulted USDAW before making redundancies. That’s £68million pound going back into the pockets of thousands of former Woolies staff – and just as importantly, a very clear message sent out to employers and administrators that unions won’t stand by and watch members get diddled out of what little legal protection they have. Without USDAW I think you can safely assume the likelihood of those staff receiving a single penny in compensation would have been close to zero.

The other case I thought I’d highlight shows that unions are not just about helping members when things go wrong, or reacting to closures and redundancies. They can also be on the front foot. RMT have notched up a number of notable victories over the last few months (and as a regular user of Virgin Trains I was particularly pleased with this pay award for contract cleaners on Branson’s West Coast Mainline routes), but the thing that really caught my eye was the news that the union had managed to secure a Olympics paydeal worth some £2,500 for staff on the Docklands Light Railway. A one-off deal for a one-off event? Hard to replicate elsewhere? Maybe… but it’s a win that owes a lot to strong union organisation, and shows what unions can do to buck the prevailing pay trend.   With average wage settlements bumping along at around 2%, and unions looking for ways to reverse the three decade long assault on pay, its a good reminder that below inflation pay-rises are neither pre-ordained or inevitable.

At a time when tens of thousands of union members face the prospect of losing their jobs, and are struggling to make ends meet, I’m reluctant to reach for pat assurances that all is well. Of course, all is not well. 2011 was a tough year for unions and their members. 2012 looks like being tougher still. But that makes it even more important that we take heart from – and celebrate – each and every success we have.

The two examples I’ve highlighted above show two very different unions in very different circumstances, who despite all the challenges have managed to tip the balance back a little bit towards their members. These aren’t one-offs. The same is happening in workplaces, both public and private, up and down the country. David is winning more often than we sometimes think. I reckon that something that’s got to be worth shouting about – and if you do too, tell us about your wins at @strongerunions

Earlier today Ken Zinn, the NNU’s director of strategic campiagns, emailed me to ask what songs and chants people will be using on picket lines across the UK on November 30, and I have to admit I drew a bit of a blank. 

I’ll guess there will be a fair few‘No if’s, no but’s etc etc’ and one or two renditions of ‘David Cameron, hear us shout…’ , but have any Stronger Unions readers got any better ideas? What are you planning to do to raise spirits and a few laughs on your picket line, march or rally this Wednesday?

Suggestions in the comments box or via Twitter please…oh, and try to remember this is a ‘family friendly’ blog so please reflect that in your suggestions!

Their latest opus sets out what it calls a ‘scandalous subsidy for unions’ conflating facilities and facility time for union reps in the public sector, with other types of support such as that provided through the Union Learning Fund – an initiative that has won widespread support from employers and Ministers alike.

Leaving aside the usual mistakes and/or deliberate omissions (the NFU is a ‘union’ apparently though I can confirm they have not indicated their official support for the TUC’s Day of action on November 30,  and there is no mention of the fact that in some cases unions make payments toward the costs of facilities and time-off arrangements) the report’s major flaw is that it purports to highlight the COSTS (allegedly £113m) of such support, but studiously avoids any mention of any BENEFITS that may accrue from such support.

Thus the traditional cost/benefit analysis’ that most organisations or individuals would use to assess whether or not something represented value for money, is replaced in the world of the TPA by a slightly more simplistic ‘cost – and only cost -analysis’.

But fear not. A rigorous cost/benefit analysis of public support for union facilities and facility time was undertaken by the Department for Business in 2007. This found that the benefits of union representation far outweighed the costs to the tax-payer (we’ve summarised this in the past).

In fact it showed that reps across the public and private sector give their employers and fellow employees about £115m of their own time every year (at 2007 prices) – which by neat coincidence slightly exceeds the £113m that the TPA claims unions receive in public support. But the benefits of union representation go way beyond the time that union reps put in of their own accord.

Across the public and private sector the analysis concluded that union reps accounted for:

• Savings to employers and the exchequer of between £22m – £43m as a result of reducing the number of Employment Tribunal cases;
• Benefits to society worth between £136m – £371m as a result of reducing working days lost due to workplace injury and;
• Benefits to society worth between £45m – £207m as a result of reducing work related illness.

In addition, using the same formulae used in the BERR report but with updated figures, it can reasonably be estimated that the work of union reps also results in;

• Overall productivity gains worth between £4bn to 12bn to the UK economy;
• Savings of at least £19 million as a result of reducing dismissals;
• Savings to employers of between £82m – £143m in recruitment costs as a result of reducing early exits.

One would have thought that an organisation that claims to want to SAVE the tax-payer money would therefore be rather in favour of unions. But instead Britain’s ‘independent grassroots campaign for lower taxes’ (no sniggering at the back) seems, as a point of principle, to object to government spending ANY money that may support trade union reps carrying out their duties, even if that money generates higher, real and measurable benefits for employers, the tax-payer and UK PLC as a whole. Hmmm.

This doesn’t really seem to make any sense at all. But then little about the TPA makes sense. One would have thought a significant grass-roots organisation could have mustered more than a few hundred people for its ‘Rally against the Debt’ just weeks after the TUC mobilised half a million to ‘March for the Alternative’. And for an organisation that talks a lot about the need for financial transparency, its own ‘Annual Review’ is somewhat opaque on its major sources of funding (recently raised here as well).

Of course the largest, most democratic organisations made up of grass-roots ‘tax-payers’ in the UK are actually trade unions – whose six million members in the public and private sector do pay tax, do use and value public services, and who are actively supporting union campaigns to make taxes fair. If that sounds like you, don’t despair – there is a Tax Payers Alliance for you as well!

Over the next few days unions including UNITE, the GMB and a host of others will be announcing the results of their industrial action ballots over pensions.

As sure as night follows day– and as we saw after the UNISON ballot result  last week –right wing commentators and politicians will be out in force bleating loudly about ‘low turn-outs’ and ‘weak mandates’.

Here are five reasons why moans about turnouts and mandates are disingenuous:

1)    People in glasshouses…

Talk of mandates is a bit rich coming from a coalition government that failed to win a clear majority at the last election. Only 23.5% of the electorate voted for the Conservatives in May 2010. Only 1 in 7 voters cast a vote for the Liberal Democrats. Together both parties failed to secure a majority of those eligible to vote. And yet, despite this lack of a mandate, they are pushing through reforms that they either couldn’t even be bothered to put in their manifesto (‘no top down reform of the NHS’ anyone) or that directly contradict those that they did (tripling tuition fees).

2)    If governments really want to improve turnouts they should make it easier for people to vote

Insisting on people taking part in a home postal ballot is clunky and destroys any link between the issue at hand and the act of voting. When I vote for anything I like to be informed. I like to know what the issues are; what other people are saying about them; what the arguments for and against might be.

It would make sense if having had that discussion with my colleagues I could then cast my vote in the workplace, or maybe even on-line during my lunch-break  or at the end of my shift. But the legislation doesn’t allow you to do that. Instead you have to go home, wait for your ballot to arrive, and then make a trip to the Post Box.

Is it not a bit bizarre that in the 21^st century I can vote for my worst/favourite candidate on a reality TV show by phone, on-line or by text but that if I want to cast a vote in an industrial action ballot I have to do so by such a prescriptive, and for many people unintuitive, route.

If the government was serious about improving turnouts in industrial action ballots – rather than scoring political points – it would get rid of balloting ‘red-tape’ and allow people  to vote in a way that suits them and would also maximise turnout. One for the ‘Red Tape Challenge’ maybe? Don’t hold your breath.

3)    Not voting is not the same as voting no

The lazy and politically motivated assumption amongst many politicians and  media commentators is that if people don’t vote for industrial action, they are in effect voting against industrial action. Is that really the case? Is this the way we assess voting patterns more broadly? As I’ll set out later there are lots of reasons why people don’t vote – but the fact that they don’t vote, doesn’t mean that if they had they would have voted against taking industrial action.

Just for once I’d love to see a newspaper headline which said (using UNISON’s figures) ‘6.4% of union members vote NOT to take industrial action’. Again, don’t hold your breath.

4)    The ballots in the run up to November 30 are a huge exercise in democracy

We love democracy in this country. We especially love it when it takes place in other countries. Even the most right-wing newspapers go weak at the knees at the sight of people going to the polls for the first time in countries emerging from despotic regimes, and rightly so.

The exception to this enthusiasm for democracy appears to be industrial action ballots. But isn’t taking part in a collective act of democracy a good thing?

We should value the fact that – taking the Unison ballot result – over 300,000 people took part in a significant democratic event that for once had nothing to do with a TV show.  And even more so in an era where we are constantly told that people are disillusioned with politics and the democratic process in general.

Such participation runs totally at odds with the government’s narrative that society is broken and civic engagement is in decline.  And what a breath of fresh air the decision making processes of unions are – based on the will of hundreds of thousands, and potentially millions, of ‘ordinary’ men and women – and not the whims of a cabinet-sized group of multi millionaires.

You know what I’m going to say next. Isn’t this just about the best example you can find of the ‘Big Society’ in action?!

5)    There are lots of reasons people don’t vote

In the UK we work on the basis that as well as having a right TO vote, people have a right NOT to vote.  This is underpinned by the belief that no inference should be taken from a decision not to vote.  These principles apply as equally to industrial action ballots as to those  processes by which we elect councillors and MPs.

The reasons why people don’t vote are many and complex. Sometimes they don’t think the issue is important enough to them. Sometimes they genuinely can’t make up their minds and decide to sit the vote out and see what others think.  And yes, sometimes people are just too damn lazy.

I’d add a couple of other reasons that I think are relevant to the current round of ballots.

In the last few months we’ve lost over 100,000 public sector jobs. Public sector workers are trying their best to cope with arbitrary pay freezes at a time when inflation is running at over 5% and the real costs of living for families – the petrol you put in your car, the food you buy in the supermarket, the clothes you buy your kids – are rising even faster than that.

If you work on the assumption – and I do – that a vote for industrial action is a big deal for our members even at the best of times (its a vote which costs you money), its perhaps not surprising that some people have hung back and decided not to vote.

Secondly, the stark reality is that many of our members are loath to do anything that means they can’t do their jobs – they care about their patients, their pupils, the members of the public who rely upon them. They take pride in the work and the services they deliver.

But they are having to balance that commitment and that loyalty, with the realisation that the government’s proposals on pensions will mean paying more, working longer and getting less. Its a tough call – and in the face of that call, I guess some people have effectively decided to defer their decision in the hope an agreed settlement can be reached.

In that they are not alone.

Unions have made clear all along that they are prepared to negotiate a fair pensions settlement. But what we can’t accept is imposed changes that will leave millions of public servant workers out of pocket, and will render pensions promises made over a lifetime of service meaningless.

I’m proud to be active in, and work for, a democratic movement. I’m glad that at the end of the day decisions about how what unions do, and how they are run, rest with the members.  And, I’m not too keen on taking lessons in democracy from those who when they are looking for votes promise one thing, and when elected deliver another.

There is a common perception in the UK (and indeed across much of the industrialised world) that people are becoming less and less likely to engage in community and voluntary activity. In the UK – as Becky has vlogged – membership of both political parties and trade unions has fallen markedly in the last 3 decades. In the US, the phrase ‘bowling alone’ taken from Robert Putnam’s book of the same title has come to express the sense that society is becoming more and more fragmented; that the traditional informal and formal groupings that bind us together have become weaker and less prevalent; that our social ‘networks’ are increasingly based in the virtual world rather than the real one.

Politicians have seized upon this narrative. David Cameron has prescribed the Big society as the cure for ‘Broken Britain’ (stop sniggering at the back); the mainstream left have countered with the ‘Good Society’ and a clear strand of the Blue Labour project is to (re)create the ‘organizing structures and practices’ which can help people come together around local campaigns and shared political aspirations.

It’s this traditional narrative of ‘Broken Britain’, the sense that our social realm was in decline that Henry Hemming set out to write about. What he actually ended up writing was very different. Rather than charting the death of associational activity, ‘Together’ highlights what Hemming describes as ‘a nationwide surge of associational activity in Britain’.

Acknowledging that many of the larger traditional ‘associations – the WI, Rotary clubs, Working Men’s Clubs and, yes in many cases, unions – have experienced decline, Hemming charts an explosion in the number of clubs, associations,
community organisations and voluntary groups active across the UK.

But as well as charting the unheralded growth of associational behaviour in the UK, and the positive impact that has for individuals and society more broadly, ‘Together’ also offers practical insights for unions and others  as to what helps groups form, sustain themselves and be effective.

Those that Hemming identifies as ‘Machers’: people who ‘articulate what an association could be’; who co-ordinate their group and remind people of their responsibilities; who step back and give others the space to develop and shine; and who have a thick enough skin to take the flak when things go wrong, unions will readily identify as activists and potential reps. How we identify union ‘machers’ and ‘maintainers’ – those who help to sustain local organisations –  how  we support and develop them, are key questions for unions at a time when our rep base is declining and aging.

‘Together’ also helps highlight the important role that the internet can play in helping ‘real-life’ groups can coalesce and sustain themselves. On-line activity is not a substitute for meeting face to face, and basic human interaction but it can help groups keep in touch, to sustain their conversations between formal meetings and enrich the quality of those conversations and activity.

We have such a strong starting point – over  6 million members; 200,000 workplace reps; the ability to organise and mobilise when we really put our minds to it and work together (March 26, or the 35,000 we turned out at Conservative Party conference just 3 weekends ago).

Our organisational DNA is infused with the practical experience that by coming together, we are so much more than the sum of our parts.  ‘Together’ is a useful reminder that solidarity lives and breathes in many different ways, and in many different places. For every national demo, there are dozens, if not hundreds of small anti-cuts groups meeting in church halls, community centres and front-rooms (the False Economy web-site lists over 200 such anti-cuts groups). Knitting together these disparate but essential strands of our movement, is a an essential part of our wider campaign to stop this government’s programme of cuts and reforms in its track, and our longer term objective to build stronger, more effective unions.

What is perhaps more surprising is the way (and here) that unions are approaching the industrial action. As well as the traditional picket lines, UNISON members are using street theatre to get their message across to the local community. More radically, a group of striking members has volunteered to spend the rest of their day on strike volunteering for a local charity, and have called on Barnet Council to give the money they otherwise would have paid to council staff as a donation to the local mayor’s charitable fund.

These are interesting developments at a time when many unions are gearing up for the TUC Day of Action on November 30, and protestors around the world have taken to the streets to protest against the failures of the market.

Public sector strikes are often emotive and concerns about the potential impact of industrial action in the public sector are not confined to service users or the broader public. Public sector union members are always loath to take industrial action which impacts on the people that use their services. No teacher, nurse, social worker, care assistant, town-hall worker or civil servant relishes the prospect of not being able to do the job they take pride in, never mind the personal financial and other pressures which accompany industrial action. It’s a cliché, but it’s true nonetheless, that strike action is always seen – by both public and private sector workers – as a last resort, one to be taken when there is no other alternative. That’s why the government should be so worried that there is such a groundswell around November 30.

But what is happening in Barnet illustrates, on a small scale, the sort of approaches unions can take to ensure that industrial action is not only effective but also attracts the sympathy and support of service users and the broader public. In particular it highlights two issues.

First of all, it speaks to a need for unions to think imaginatively and innovatively about what form industrial action can take. Some of this may look and feel very different to what both unions and the general public would consider to be ‘traditional’ industrial action – in Germany Verdi has used flashmobs in supermarkets to put pressure on  retailers on issues round pay and hours; and in New Zealand the Super Size My Pay’ campaign has use ‘lightning strikes’ accompanied with loud music and the offer of free coffee in their (successful) efforts to get chains like Starbucks to sign up to collective agreements.

As far back as the mid-1980’s Canadian bus drivers in dispute with their employer produced ‘unfare’ cards, asking passengers to only pay part of their fare, accompanied by a pledge to pay the remainder when the bus-driver’s dispute was settled; more recently and in a very hostile environment, Iranian bus-drivers have refused to collect fares from passengers in protest at their working conditions.

We can also learn from our own history in this regard – the 1990’s Ambulance driver’s dispute, when driver’s ended up effectively running their own ambulance service is just one example.

Secondly, we need to take seriously the need to win the battle for public opinion.

Often during industrial action engaging the public rarely goes beyond a leaflet to passers-by and encouraging the odd beeping horn from a passing car. But in the face of a government determined to drive through cuts, and determined to take an axe to public services, as well as pensions, terms and conditions, it is essential that union members connect their struggles to service users and the broader public. Identifying and encouraging service users who will act as public advocates in the media for workers on strike; framing the dispute in terms of what cuts will mean for service users not just workers;  using our time on strike as creatively as the workers in Barnet did; all these are small efforts that could be crucial in helping frame disputes in a more positive light, and building the sort of broad progressive coalition we know will be necessary if our campaigns are to gain any real traction.

Of course, none of this is easy. At times the issues at hand will not lend themselves to broader public campaigning, and will only be resolved industrially. But its equally clear that alongside our current challenges are real opportunities to move calls to build ‘progressive alliances’ from rhetoric to reality. To do so will require new and, at times, brave thinking. It will be mean being prepared to supplement the traditional union ‘play-book’ with new lessons learnt from other movements.  And sometimes it will mean empowering local activists and reps to do things differently.

The polling evidence suggests that a small majority of the public believe that unions are in the right to take industrial action to defend pay, terms and conditions – our challenge is to build on that latent support. Our starting point is a strong one. Our members make up one in four of the working population. Lets use that base to win the battle for the hearts and minds of the wider public.

So it was heartening today to see Iain Gray, Labour’s leader in Scotland respond positively to a recent report by Unite which called for the establishment of  ‘sector forums’ (hat-tip Keith Ewing). Speaking at the STUC Congress in Ayr, Gray announced,

“That is why I was pleased to learn that Unite have announced plans today to promote more employer and trade union joint working through sectoral bargaining and as First Minister I will explore the potential of such an initiative to attack pay inequality and protect workers in dispersed workforces.”

Of course, we’ve been here before, sort of…the so-called ‘Warwick Agreement’ contained a commitment to ‘new ‘Sectoral Forums’….to improve pay, skills, productivity and pensions’, but it will be interesting to see if and how the Labour Party run with this in Scotland should they form a government after May 5.

Could Scotland prove to be the test-bed for a new, positive, settlement between unions, employers and government?

It would seem that some boys however are loath to leave their war-games at the office door. How else can you explain ‘senior government sources’ breathlessly briefing the press about ‘war gaming’ sessions in the Cabinet Office, aimed at frustrating possible industrial action in the public sector (see here and here).

Its obviously very sophisticated stuff – as illustrated by the rationale offered by one ‘war-gamer’ to the Daily Mail.

“We are looking at who we are p***ing off and when we are p***ing them off. We need to be ready for everything.”

Smell the testosterone!

Of course, rather than developing plans to draft in private strike breakers, it might be helpful if the armchair generals behind this exercise start  from the premise that its actually not a good idea to wilfully ’p**s’ their own staff off in the first place. I suspect millions of public sector workers – and the tens of millions who rely on those services will be - as Brendan Barber noted in his response to the news -   ‘aghast to hear that the Cabinet Office is spending time, effort and resources working out how to frustrate possible industrial action in the public sector, rather than focusing on how to avoid it in the first place.’Lets hope the grown-ups in the Cabinet Office see a little bit of sense and shift their focus from ‘war-war’ to ‘jaw-jaw’ …

 As well as devastating our public services; stifling economic recovery; increasing unemployment and hitting the poorest and most vulnerable hardest; its clear the government’s plans could come as a hammer blow to public sector workers. The prospect of over 400,00 job losses, a two year pay freeze and potential changes to pensions  are just the tip of a public sector ice-berg which threatens pay, terms and conditions across health, local government, education and the civil service.

Today’s meeting at the TUC gave unions the opportunity to think through how best to collectively respond to these pressures and to link the campaign to protect public sector workers, with the broader All Together campaign to expose the impact of the government’s cuts and reforms and set out the economic alternative. Its clear this wider campaign is beginning to gather pace – a clear majority of the British public now believes that the cuts are unfair and damaging to the economy.

You can read about the outcome of the meeting here.

Despite the fact that nearly  one million young people are out of work,  the government seems intent on driving forward policies that can only intensify the pressure on the next generation of workers – the scrapping of EMA; the tripling of tuition fees and the end of the Future Jobs Fund all bear the hallmarks of a government thats out of touch, and out of ideas for tackling youth unemployment.

Join us in Manchester on Saturday and support the call for a ‘Future that Works’!