Catholics should defend trade union freedom and dignity at work

This autumn we will see the Conservative Government attempt to introduce a trade union reform bill. All who believe that our life at work is an important part of our human flourishing should be very concerned about the Government’s plans.

The bill would bring in unprecedented thresholds of 50 per cent in industrial action ballots and new time limitations on ballot mandates which will allow employers and courts to interfere and delay legitimate industrial disputes.

There are proposals that will allow employers to bus in agency workers to cover the jobs of strikers during official action and there will be criminal sanctions on picketing along with absurd restrictions on the use of social media in the course of a dispute. The intention is to make it extremely difficult for unions to organise lawful strikes on issues that matter to their members – everything from pay, pensions, to family friendly agreements.

The Government is proposing to place an unfeasible limit on the number of reps given paid time off for trade union activities in public sector workplaces. There are also plans to change how unions collect their membership fees – both through individual payments and through check-off arrangements, whereby the employer deducts the fee from the salary. Employees in unionised workplaces enjoy better terms and conditions not only because they can exercise the right to strike in extreme circumstances, but also because trained trade union reps are active in the workplace, negotiating, representing and promoting the wellbeing of the workforce and participating in meaningful industrial relations.

This bill doesn’t just restrict industrial action it undermines day to day union organisation. The right for workers to organise to protect labour standards is supported by Catholic Social Teaching.

But the cumulative result of all the proposed changes in this bill is that it will be much harder for unions to defend decent pay rates and other terms and conditions in the workplace. Taken together with the massive cuts already proposed in the Government’s budget and Welfare Bill, this will inevitably increase poverty in the UK. Employees will have less employment rights, patchier trade union organisation to protect these reduced employment rights, and then have less access to genuine social security when they are unemployed or on wages so low they rely on benefits, currently a majority of all claimants.

The UK has the most restrictive anti union laws in a western liberal democracy due to the introduction of comprehensive legislation by the Conservative Government of the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Now we have had over three decades of rising inequality with a greater share of the nation’s wealth going to those who own wealth rather than those who sell their labour to live, CEO pay is pulling even further away from average salaries as detailed in the latest report from the High Pay commission, and there has been a fall in real wages since the 2007 financial crash.

It is arguable that we are in a new era where the question is not how to stop union ‘excesses’ but rather how to halt capitalist excess. Pope Francis has spoken out against societies that seek only profit and a ‘balancing of the books’ and do not pay a just wage. He has argued that it is work, not power, money or culture that gives men and women a sense of dignity. The most effective way stop accelerating economic inequality and maintain dignified labour standards is to encourage democratic and accountable trade union organisation in society. If we do not resist this Trade Union Bill our society will be made poorer and our work life harsher and meaner.