With so many rules and regs enshrined in EU labour law now, are unions relevant any more? I'm not sure that they've been relevant to British workers since the rise of tribunalism, where the disaffected can go to ombudsmen and various panels, without the need to belong to a union or for their representation. Any thoughts on this, anyone? Life without unions is possible if you have legally-enforceable good rules about working conditions, surely?
I agree, sadly, that trade unions have become largely irrelevant in the UK, Krizon, but I think that a proper trade union movement would have a big contribution to make. After all, where would labour laws come from if there is no labour movement to campaign for them?
I think British trade unions are probably the weakest in western Europe. This is partly due to economic factors such as the loss of coal and most of the steel and motor industries and the growth of service sectors which are difficult to organise, and partly due to hostile legal measures introduced by the Thatcher governments which "New Labour" did nothing to reverse.
But another part of the reason is limited vision and poor strategy by the British unions. Most European countries have institutionalised dialogue between the so-called social partners (trade unions, employers, the voluntary sector and government) about working conditions, labour law, social welfare, access to health services, migration policy and the like. This sort of process got under way in Ireland in the 1990s and has been a great success. For example, when the Irish economy hit the rocks in recent years and a huge budget deficit opened up, public sector wages were slashed. In France and Greece there would have been riots but in Ireland there was broad acceptance - sullen, perhaps, but acceptance nevertheless - because the trade unions were fully informed of the seriousness of the situation and of the need for their co-operation to get us out of the mess.
For their part unions have had much greater influence than they had in their traditional role of confronting individual employers, despite experiencing some of the same adverse economic factors as the UK unions and a major drop in membership. They have been able to insist on proper enforcement of labour legislation and industry ageements, including a decent enough minimum wage. This has been very helpful in reducing resentment against migrant labour. They have been able to trade off increases for middle and upper incomes in order to protect the living standards of the lowest paid and, with the help of the voluntary sector, they obtained a more generous social welfare package for pensioners and the unemployed.
This process of social dialogue has not been accepted by everyone on the union side. There are those, Trots and others, who simply want to see the present economic system collapse and oppose attempts to shore it up, but more numerous are those who simply think this sort of give and take is collaboration with the enemy, and a sign of weakness.
Ireland has both British-based and home grown trade unions operating (both north and south), and it is noticeable that the main opposition to social dialogue has come from the British unions. They are unsympathetic to the European christian/social democrat model of social dialogue, and seem to be as wedded to the Anglo-Saxon version of capitalism as their governments and employers. In the process, as their economic power declines, and given their aversion to social dialogue, they have been reduced to little more than purveyors of cut price insurance and holiday packages to their members.
