According to today’s
release from the Office of National Statistics, 2017 saw the smallest
number of workers, involved in the smallest number of strikes since records
began in 1891.
Almost half of the 33,000 workers who took action, and two
thirds of the 276,000 days lost to strike action, were in the transport sector
(which means that were it not for the disputes on the railways these figures
for strike action would be lower still).
Since the railways are privatised this also impacts upon the
distinction between strike action in the public and private sectors. Whereas, for
each year between 2000 and 2016, there were more working days lost in the
public sector than in the private sector even though the private sector is much
larger, In 2017, for the first time since 1999, there were more working days
lost in the private sector (232,000) than in the public sector (44,000).
The number of working days lost in the private sector in
2017 (232,000) was the largest since 1996 and the number of working days lost
in the public sector in 2017 (44,000) was the lowest figure on record.
Public sector strike action is currently almost absent, in
spite of the fact that public service workers have suffered devastating decline
in living standards since the economic crash – the lack of strike action is not
because workers and their trade unions have found some other way to achieve
satisfactory pay increases.
As the long standing inability of our trade unions to mount
effective and sustained action to improve members’ living standards has
contributed (alongside changes in the sectoral composition of the workforce) to
a significant decline
in the union wage premium, we will have to watch to see from official statistics, when they are published
in the near future, if the decline in union membership is also continuing.
I wish luck to those in the trade unions struggling for
change – and (again) would encourage all those who want to see improvements for working
people in this country to focus immediate activity on building and campaigning
for the Labour Party under socialist leadership.
Jon is quite right to bring these figures to our attention and the unfortunate reality is that the 2017 statistics confirm a long-term trend, not unique to but especially acute in Britain: broadly static or declining union membership and density, and reduced combativity contributing to an erosion of living standards for large sections of the working class (both 'blue' and 'white' collar) and a rise in grotesque inequalities of income and wealth.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, the 2017 figures don't tell the whole story. Of course, last year saw the implementation of the key feature of the Tories' Trade Union Act 2016 with its imposition of a high hurdle for participation and 'yes' votes in strike ballots and it was also the year of a general election that yielded an encouraging result with Labour emerging with a substantially increased number of seats and Theresa May only able to retain No 10 on the basis of an especially rotten pact with the DUP.
My suspicion is that there is an element of 'wait for Labour' under a Corbyn/McDonnell leadership, an understandable but in many respects dangerous attitude, and one that some union leaders are likely to be only too happy to encourage. But what the latter half of 2017 also illustrated was that national unions had the capacity to campaign and win membership-wide ballots that beat the Tory legislation. The dramatic highlight came from the CWU ballot of its more than 100,000 across the recently privatised Royal Mail where the union secured a thumping majority (over 89% 'yes') on a turnout of 73%. Of course, there was no strike in the end, but whatever the merits/flaws of the ultimate deal with Royal Mail management it was an overall victory.
The other case worthy of note comes from the UCU where again a national strike ballot across more than 60 'old' (pre-1992) universities yielded decisive majorities that again surpassed the Tories' draconian 50% threshold for turnout. There is most certainly a debate to be had about the deal that emerged to end the dispute and, in particular, how the settlement was sold to lecturers, but the UCU strikes in the university may well have accounted for more than half a million strike days in the first quarter of 2018 (40,000 members x 14 days of strike action). The separate pay dispute involving a small number of Further Education branches of the UCU has undoubtedly generated several thousand more.
Of course, these facts - and numerous small-scale fightbacks from Hackney traffic wardens to Hull recylcing workers - can't mask the uncomfortable truths contained in the official statistics for last year, but we certainly shouldn't ignore the beacons of hope flashing midst the gloom.