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Speech to Unions 21 Fringe Meeting - 21 Sept 2010, Chris Weavers Principal Official (Parliamentary and Trade Union Liaison), NASUWT.
Is there room in the Coalition for trade unions?
Good evening and thank you to the IPA and to Unions 21 for organising this fringe meeting and for inviting NASUWT to give our perspective on this important question.
The NASUWT is the largest teachers’ union in the UK, representing teachers and headteachers in all sectors from early years to further education. We are neither linked to nor affiliated to any political party and aim to serve the best interests of teachers and our education system no matter the party of power at national or local level.
As things currently stand, the answer to the question would have to be no or at least not enough.
The first five months of Coalition Government has set an unfortunate tone when it comes to consultation and engagement not just with trade unions but with a wide range of representative organisations.
I will give a few examples to illustrate this tone:
• The Academies Bill – this Bill was introduced to Parliament on the 26 May of this year, two weeks after the formation of the coalition. No Green Paper no prior consultation at all. Most importantly, the indecent haste with which the Bill was rushed through Parliament meant that line by line scrutiny of the legislation by a Bill Committee was sacrificed and along with it, the ability of trade unions and other organisations to share our expertise with Parliamentarians.
• Over the same period we have witnessed cuts to education provision, changes to public sector pensions, abortion of the BSF programme and abolition of a range of quangos – all with out the slightest consultation
• Amongst the casualties of the last five months has been the social partnership in the education sector. For the last seven years, trade unions, employers, local and central government have worked in genuine partnership to drive up standards in our schools. This too has now been abolished and a forum imposed in which education stakeholders receive a bi-monthly lecture from the Department for Education.
So why is it important that there is room in the Coalition for trade unions?
Free and active trade unions are a key indicator of a healthy democracy and provide some of the best examples of voluntary social organisations effectively challenging or defending the status quo on behalf of their members and communities.
It is all too easy for lazy politicians to seek to paint trade unions as acting purely on behalf of vested interests. While we would certainly make no apology for representing the interests of our members, history shows time and again that unions are usually at the forefront of wider, positive societal change to the benefit of all.
The national agreement reach between eight education unions and the last government was entitled ‘Raising Standards, Tackling Workload, explicitly recognising that improving the pay, terms and conditions of the education workforce delivered direct and substantial benefits in the form of increased educational attainment on the part of pupils.
Research has shown time and again that constructive engagement between trade unions and employers delivers substantial benefits in terms of efficiency and service delivery. For example:
• in the delivery of effective training and development
• improvements to industrial relations and staff morale
• the identification and resolution of issues around health and safety and equalities.
There is no larger employer than government and the public sector as a whole. As is often quoted – the NHS alone is the fourth largest employer in the world, after the Chinese Army Wal-Mart and the Indian Railways. The potential benefit to Government of a constructive relationship with trade unions is immense.
So what would room in the coalition for trade unions look like?
Firstly, a return to a genuine partnership approach to public service delivery. Trade unions represent the collective expertise of millions of public service workers. In common with the rest of the trade union movement our policies are determined democratically, in our case by serving classroom teachers working in every part of the UK. Our policies therefore represent the collective wisdom of more than a quarter of a men and women working in education week in, week out.
Gimmicks such the ‘Your Freedom’ website are doubtless a reflection of the Coalitions’ commitment to the ‘Big Society’ but the diminution of the voice of representative, collective organisations in favour of that of individuals is much more akin to the familiar phrase ‘there is no such thing as society’.
Secondly, genuine consultation on government policies. To be honest, any consultation at the moment would be welcome as little has been forthcoming. Liberal Democrats have long recognised the value of genuine parliamentary and public scrutiny of policy – poor scrutiny almost always leads to poor laws. Sadly, this Government has thus far shown no inclination to consult on the vast majority of decisions and the decisions taken thus far and much the worse for this.
Trade unions seek no favouritism, simply a genuine opportunity to feed in to government policy making – across both the public and private sectors.
There is little room in the Coalition for trade unions at the moment. I hope I have set out why such room needs to be made and how this and any other Government will be the stronger for it.
