We now live in a world in
which unemployment can fall to a forty
year low yet there is no pressure on wages because our trade union movement
is, as someone once said, “timid
and shackled and tame”.
With almost
a million workers on zero hours contracts, and many hundreds
of thousands more in faux self-employment, we now live in an economy in
which the super-exploitation of casualised labour is as commonplace as it was
on the docks in the late nineteenth century.
Back then workers
built trade unions in order to ensure better outcomes for union members in
the labour market, from which we got the trade union wage premium – the average
amount by which the earnings of trade unionists exceeded those of non trade
unionists.
Although the union wage
premium may well arise as much from the differential age profile, or (which is
not unrelated) the differential length of service profile, between union
members and non-members in the workforce, the amount of the premium remains an
indication of trade union effectiveness.
It is therefore worth
looking at what has been happening to the union wage premium recently and this
is set out in Table One.
Table One: The Union Wage Premium for selected years
in the private and public sectors 1995-2015
Average hourly earnings (£ per hour)
|
||||
|
Trade union membership
|
Trade Union Wage Premium (%)
|
||
|
All employees
|
Member
|
Non-members
|
|
All
employees
|
|
|
|
|
1995
|
7.11
|
8.27
|
6.57
|
25.9
|
2000
|
8.77
|
9.64
|
8.30
|
16.1
|
2005
|
10.74
|
11.94
|
10.28
|
16.1
|
2010
|
12.55
|
14.05
|
12.02
|
16.9
|
2011
|
12.59
|
14.19
|
11.99
|
18.3
|
2012
|
12.92
|
14.41
|
12.43
|
15.9
|
2013
|
12.95
|
14.48
|
12.42
|
16.6
|
2014
|
13.20
|
14.78
|
12.67
|
16.7
|
2015
|
13.49
|
14.87
|
13.04
|
14.1
|
Change from 1995
|
6.38
|
6.60
|
6.47
|
-
|
Private
Sector
|
||||
1995
|
6.72
|
7.52
|
6.52
|
15.3
|
2000
|
8.47
|
8.77
|
8.30
|
5.7
|
2005
|
10.33
|
10.88
|
10.24
|
6.3
|
2010
|
12.04
|
12.65
|
11.95
|
5.9
|
2011
|
12.01
|
12.83
|
11.86
|
8.2
|
2012
|
12.40
|
13.06
|
12.31
|
6.1
|
2013
|
12.46
|
13.22
|
12.34
|
7.1
|
2014
|
12.81
|
13.68
|
12.65
|
8.2
|
2015
|
13.11
|
13.98
|
12.97
|
7.7
|
Change from 1995
|
6.39
|
6.46
|
6.45
|
-
|
Public
Sector
|
||||
1995
|
8.13
|
8.98
|
6.89
|
30.3
|
2000
|
9.64
|
10.44
|
8.25
|
26.5
|
2005
|
11.81
|
12.72
|
10.51
|
21.0
|
2010
|
13.83
|
14.89
|
12.41
|
20.0
|
2011
|
14.11
|
15.07
|
12.75
|
18.2
|
2012
|
14.32
|
15.30
|
13.10
|
16.8
|
2013
|
14.28
|
15.41
|
12.85
|
19.9
|
2014
|
14.31
|
15.56
|
12.80
|
21.6
|
2015
|
14.56
|
15.53
|
13.38
|
16.1
|
Change from 1995
|
6.43
|
6.55
|
6.49
|
-
|
This data demonstrates that
the benefit to workers of being a trade union member has declined very
significantly over the past twenty years, albeit the great bulk of that decline
in the private sector (where the majority of workers are employed) occurred in
the previous century. In the public sector the decline has continued (unevenly)
throughout this century.
For UNISON members in local
government we can also compare what has been happening to our earnings compared
to earnings in the economy as a whole. After 1 April 2009 a worker on spinal
column point 28 on the National Joint Council pay spine earned £23,708. Seven
years later, after 1 April 2016 a worker on the same pay point earned £24,904 (an
increase of £1,196 or 5% over those seven years). Over the same period the Retail
Price Index rose by 23% (meaning that the real value of the earnings of the
worker on spine point 28 fell by 15%). Over the same period (April 2009 to
April 2016), average
weekly earnings across the economy as a whole rose by 12.8%, meaning that
the decline in real wages across the economy (8.3%) was less than the decline
in real wages in local government.
It is little wonder that the
trade union wage premium is in decline when we are failing to increase the
wages and salaries of workers in the largest union organised bargaining unit in
the entire economy in line with either rising prices or rising wages and salaries
in the economy as a whole. Under our current leadership our trade union
movement is failing to demonstrate that we are worth being a part of to an
entire generation of young workers facing exploitation we could hardly have imagined
a generation ago.
I am therefore very pleased
to have spent some of my afternoon, as Chair of Brighton Pavilion Constituency Labour
Party, supporting the striking workers at Brighton’s
Duke of York Cinema in their entirely justified campaign for a living wage.
Our current trade union movement (under its current leadership) is failing to
deliver in the fight against low pay – but that does not mean that such failure
is inevitable.
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