They’re young and (often) female, they use social media and they preach mediation. Have today’s loveable union leaders really changed their ways?
One of the best-selling items at Red Molotov, Britain’s leading online purveyor of sloganeering T-shirts, speaks volumes about the traditional view of industrial relations in the UK. The tasteful brown hoodie features a scowling Bob Crow, general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, accompanied by the legend: “Spit on your own and you can’t do anything, but if you all spit together you can drown the bastards.”
While the item may be de rigeur in certain left-leaning circles, Crow himself probably won’t be wearing one, or repeating his sentiment in public. Once the militant, today he talks of“good relationships” with employers and mutually beneficial outcomes. He even recorded a message for delegates at the CIPD’s annual conference.
He isn’t the only one who has changed his rhetoric. “In the 70s, coming to work was like operating in a war zone,” says Phil Millward, who joined Vauxhall Motors in Ellesmere Port as an apprentice in 1969. “It was them and us. You just come to work to assemble a vehicle, do what I tell you to do and don’t have the audacity to give me any feedback.” Last year, as General Motors’ HR director for the UK and Ireland, Millward negotiated a groundbreaking four-year pay deal for Vauxhall colleagues in Ellesmere Port and Luton, which included a pay freeze for two years, agreed with Unite and voted for by employees.
Such a rapprochement would have seemed unlikely even a few years ago, but the recession has changed the discourse around unions. While industrial disputes still make the news, days lost to strike action – around one million a year – are nothing compared with the gargantuan 29.5m in 1979. The CIPD’s Managing Employee Relations in Difficult Times report in November 2012 said: “The world has changed and competitive pressures mean that there is not the opportunity for most employees to take industrial action against their employer without damaging their own interests.”
“On the unions’ side,” says Nita Clarke, director of the IPA and CIPD vice-president, employee relations, “there’s an understanding that there is a commonality of interest with employers, to keep organisations successful and in business... the relationship has become far more sophisticated. There’s also far more appreciation on the employers’ side about just how valuable and helpful the unions can be as a representative of employee voice.”
In this new age of partnership, says Mike Emmott, CIPD adviser, employee relations, “the story about employer and union relationships turning on the annual pay negotiation is a faded and historic one. The story [now] is much more week-to-week and month-to-month, adjusting to new circumstances. Both sides can make progress if they tell each other what is going on.”
The shifting demographics of unions themselves may in part explain why the dialogue has become more constructive. For the first time ever, half of all TUC-affiliated union members are women, as well as three in 10 of their leaders. Some of the most notable unions in the country, from the CWU to the National Union of Journalists, have women in prominent positions. Frances O’Grady, who has just taken over as TUC general secretary, is the first woman to spearhead the union movement. “I want to see us look familiar to the workforce we aim to represent,” she says. “I think, and hope, my election has challenged some of the negative stereotypes of trade unionism and people are beginning to recognise that we’re a lot more diverse than maybe we’ve been given credit for.”
O’Grady says the recession forced managers and union reps to rally around “joint causes” to protect jobs and promote family-friendly working. Just last year, London Overground Rail Operations Ltd (LOROL) was being hailed after agreeing pay and bonus deals for the London Olympics. Workers represented by three key unions – Crow’s RMT, Aslef and the TSSA – were prepared to work flexibly and volunteer for front-line support roles in return for a £250 bonus and incentives to work outside normal hours.
“I don’t think traditional models of keeping the unions at arm’s length and having a somewhat confrontational, win-lose relationship are sustainable,” says Darren Hockaday, HR director of LOROL, who says he meets with union reps over a café breakfast. “You’ve got to have good relationships that are ongoing.”
It would be easy to conclude that we are in industrial relations nirvana. Easy, but wrong. Union firebrands of the kind popularly characterised by Arthur Scargill or Brookside’s Bobby Grant may be a thing of the past (though even the generally diplomatic Mark Serwotka of the PCS sees call centres as “the new dark satanic mills”), but austerity makes for a fractious atmosphere and dissent bubbles below the surface. Ninety two per cent of all days lost to strike action in 2011 were in the public sector, and goodwill in the private sector is starting to wear thin too, say some.
“The Autumn Statement was one of the biggest squeezes on living standards since the 1920s, while a lot of pay deals are running below RPI,” claims O’Grady. Expect to hear her saying it a lot more throughout 2013. “Real cuts in pay for many, bills stacking up on energy, transport, childcare... I fear it’s going to place enormous pressure on the goodwill and good faith there is between many, many unions and many, many HR professionals.”
Two key battlegrounds will be executive pay and the living wage. Clarke says: “If people feel the squeeze on their living conditions... that is obviously going to place pressure on employers, particularly in the lower pay sectors. The issue is going to be making sure that rewards are seen to be shared fairly. Private sector organisations will need to think very hard about levels of executive pay.”
O’Grady goes further. “On average, top directors are getting 27 per cent pay increases when at best ordinary workers are getting between 2 and 3 per cent. It sticks in the throat. There is a strong sense of frustration and disappointment, but also anger that the link between how hard you work and how much you’re rewarded has been broken.” The living wage, says O’Grady, “is one of my priorities for the new year and already unions have been working with community campaigners on this issue”.
The living wage campaign reflects how trade union tactics are slowly changing. Community groups “approached the London living wage by embarrassing big corporations”, says Clarke. This quickly influenced the unions. “There are a lot more weapons [now] and publicity and reputational challenge are far more significant than they would have been, say, 10 or 15 years ago.”
A CIPD research paper quoted one HR director as saying: “In a global economy, people don’t want to take industrial action. Facebook can do as much damage.” Emmott says: “It’s taken a long time for the penny to drop for many employers. But unions are playing on a big board. It’s not just the employer and the union; it’s customers, the public, politicians, and somehow you’ve got to play off all those stakeholders. You don’t have to have a strike for unions to exert some kind of leverage.”
Large employers that use contracted agency workers have also been feeling the heat from grass-roots campaigns. Debra Cadman, HR director at Capgemini, believes unions “are absolutely using their PR potential to manoeuvre better deals from companies. If they see an opportunity for creating some negative PR for an organisation, then they will.”
O’Grady says such tactics get results: “Take an issue like unpaid work experience: the combination of unions deploying their negotiating powers to put in place agreements for fair and decent work experience, together with campaigners stood outside particular employers along with photographers and journalists from national newspapers – that provokes a pretty fast response.”
With battle lines drawn for 2013 and predictions of further friction to come, the concern from some is that vital industrial relations experience has been lost to HR departments during the entente cordiale. “These relationships tend to depend in the end on one or two people, and if things fall apart then careers are on the line,” warns Emmott. “Unions are not part of the organisation. You’re not protected by the CEO or line manager; it’s quite an unusual test of an individual’s skills.”
Though union membership has dropped more steadily over the past few years, it would be unwise to assume the winter of discontent is a thing of the past. “Certain people, maybe for good reason, are soon going to start to rattle cages,” warns Millward. “And when they do that I wonder whether business is going to have the capability to manage that in an appropriate manner. There are great HR professionals in the UK, but how many of them, if they were jettisoned into a war zone, could cope?”
Working days lost to strike action
Source: Office for National Statistics
2001 – 525,000
2002 – 1.32m
2003 – 499,000
2004 – 905,000
2005 – 157,000
2006 – 755,000
2007 – 1.04m
2008 – 759,000
2009 – 455,000
2010 – 365,000
2011 – 1.39m
2012 – 1.25m (12 months’ data to September)
