Delivering his keynote speech to the 2019 TUC Congress in September, supposed left-wing trade union leader and TUC President Mark Serwotka plaintively asked of the future ‘Will we end up just observing the rise of the far right, including our current government? Will we watch, horrified, the further decimation of our public services? Will we look fearfully at the rise of racism and hate? Will we be passive witnesses of the growth of a climate emergency?’ All the evidence for the past ten years points to one answer – yes.
The British trade union movement stood by as wages were slashed following the 2008 financial crisis, it has remained passive in the face of an onslaught on working conditions, and has pointedly protected Labour councils as they took an axe to jobs and services at the behest of the Tory austerity programme. When Serwotka concluded ‘How can we step up to face the scale of these challenges? For Congress, I hope you agree – stand up to them we must!’, it was no more than braggadocio. British trade unions are not fighting organisations of the working class, and nor are they intended to be.
There is a state of complete inertia in the face of soaring inequality and in-work poverty. In 2018, days lost through strikes totalled a mere 273,000 (figures from National Statistics: Trade Union Statistics 2018). The number of workers involved was 39,000; the number of recorded strikes 81, both the second lowest figures on record. The lowest were in 2017, when 276,000 days were lost, with 33,000 workers involved in 79 strikes. 60% of the days lost in 2018 were accounted for by one strike, the university union UCU’s campaign to defend pension rights. The number of days lost in the public sector (26,000) was the lowest since records began.
What is the point of trade unions if in today’s conditions of deepening crisis they are not able to offer even token resistance to the capitalist onslaught? They are irrelevant to young people: only 4.4% of trade unionists are under 24 although they make up 14.7% of all employees. In 1995, the proportion was 7.5%. In addition:
- Trade union members are generally older than non-members. In 1995, 22.3% of trade unionists were aged over 50; by 2018 it was 39% compared to 28.7% of non-members.
- 21.4% of trade unionists have more than 20 years’ service compared to non-members where the proportion was just 8.2%. Half of all trade unionists (50.2%) have ten or more years’ service – nearly twice the proportion of non-union members (25.8%).
- The proportion of unionised employees in the private sector has fallen to 13.2% (2.65 million in all), while in the public sector it is 52.5% (3.7 million).
- There is a steady increase in the proportion of better-off workers. More than half of trade unionists, 57.2%, were either managers, professionals or associate professionals; in 2007 the figure was 52.7%.
- 57.1% of union members have a degree or other higher education qualification compared to 43.3% of non-unionised employees. In 2007, 45.7% of trade unionists had a degree or similar qualification.
The conclusion from this is that trade union members are more likely to be working in secure jobs in the public sector – very privileged conditions. In 1891, Engels referred to the skilled unions as ‘rich and therefore cowardly’. Today, the annual income of the ten largest trade unions is over £750m, and their gross assets are worth over £1bn. They are indeed rich, as are their general secretaries who will be earning more than £100,000pa. They are certainly cowardly: they have abandoned the working class and even decency. When the call came for the trade unions to take strike action against climate change on 20 September, their first concern was for their assets: such strike action would have broken the anti-trade union laws and could have led to the sequestration of their funds. In the vexed choice between the survival of the planet and hard cash today, there could only be one answer for British trade unions.
Robert Clough
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 272 October/November 2019
