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Mr. Denham : We have heard much about the niceties of the law and the history of the situation. I should like to put on record what happened in one of the test cases.
The case concerning Associated British Ports in Southampton led to the judgment that resulted in this hurried amendment. It is a case that any reasonable person would describe as demonstrating unfair, unreasonable and unjust company conduct, leading to action in the Court of Appeal. The company set out to get rid of the union organisation. It offered the workers personal contracts, which required, in addition to the surrender of union recognition, the introduction of more flexible patterns of work. Three members of the union--Brian Stedman, Eddie Wyeth and Terry Palmer-- said that they wanted to have continued union recognition. Those who maintained that position, following union negotiation with the company, were offered a pay increase of 8.9 per cent. Those who signed the personal contracts received an increase of 22 per cent. That is the root of this case.
We have heard much from Conservative Members about management's need for flexibility. The personal contracts to which I have just referred included more flexible patterns of work. The three men who resisted, standing out for union recognition, said that they were absolutely committed to adoption of the same flexible working patterns as the ones included in the personal contracts. In other words, the flexibility being sought by management was on offer. The management's only reason for pursuing the case through the Court of Appeal was that it was determined to break union organisation in the port. The argument that these moves are necessary for the achievement of management flexibility are therefore refuted absolutely. It is a sad fact that, over the years, the port of Southampton has been a place of industrial confrontation. Unfortunately, the management there has never been able to develop the co-operative and inclusive style of management that we have heard described so glowingly by
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Conservative Members. Within the past few months a port company--part-owned by ABP, which funds the activities of at least one hon. Member, and P and O, which gives money to the Conservative party--sought to impose new working practices on a unionised part of the port and, at the same time, recruited a secret strike-breaking force to come in and take jobs on the outbreak of the predicted industrial action. But the industrial action did not break out, as the unions agreed to the changes in working practices for which the company had been asking. The company changed the rules again, in a further attempt to provoke industrial action and justify locking people out, as, tragically, has happened in Dundee. The truth is that management gets the type of trade unionism that it deserves. Confrontational management produces robust trade unionism, but trade unions are always blamed for the type of response.This country faces a clear choice about the way in which it should go in industrial relations. In Britain, there are intelligent, co-operative, far- sighted managers who recognise the importance of developing team work, of providing information to their employees, of involving people in decisions and of producing a modern and effective industrial sector. However, there is also a brutal and stupid class of management which believes in keeping the work force in the dark, in leading only from the top and in ruling by fear and insecurity. The significance of this amendment is that the Government are throwing in their lot with the latter, backward-looking, section of British industrial management. Far from promoting and backing those managers who want to work with the work force and with trade unions, to provide information, to let people in on plans and know about the difficulties and the challenges so that they may be tackled in unity, the Government have come down decisively on the side of those who say that managers should sit in their offices and send out directives and that those who do not like it can lump it.
This amendment will not be exploited by good and far-sighted managers. They do not need it, as they do not run their organisations in such a way as to need it. The amendment will be exploited by the worst British managers for the worst reasons--the worst reasons not just for the workers, but for the country as a whole. Thus it is highly significant. It is a great shame, but not a surprise, that the Government have thrown their lot in with such people and given the wrong message to people in British industry.
Mr. Clapham : I should like, at the outset, to declare an interest. I am a member of the National Union of Mineworkers, and I am proud to be sponsored by my union.
Over the past 14 years the Conservative Government have put on the statute book six major pieces of legislation in this field. Each of them attacks trade union rights. The legislation has made it difficult for trade unions to operate, but it stops short of actually outlawing or penalising union membership. This amendment changes all that. If it is accepted, it will be lawful for an employer to pay a trade unionist more than another worker doing the same job in return either for relinquishing his union membership or for accepting bargaining arrangements with another trade union. That is a major change in the law, and it cannot be right.
Clearly the amendment makes it lawful to offer a bribe. A worker is bribed for the purpose of inducing him to
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leave the union that he chose to join. It therefore imposes action short of dismissal on those who stay with the union of their choice. It is clear that such action taken by an employer to induce workers to leave the union of their choice is intended to deter or prevent individuals from joining or remaining in the union of their choice. There is no doubt that the amendment has been introduced because of the recent Court of Appeal judgment in two cases--Associated Newspapers Limited v. Wilson and Associated British Ports and others. That judgment was not what the Government wanted. They therefore decided to change the law.I believe that another motive behind the amendment is to give the employer the right to choose the trade union that he considers his employees should join. That was made plain by Viscount Ullswater in the other place :
"An employer may wish to alter his bargaining arrangements. He may offer incentives to encourage employees to accept a new arrangement where a certain trade union does not negotiate terms on their behalf."--[ Official Report, House of Lords, 24 May 1993 ; Vol. 1567, c. 97.]
The emphasis--"a certain trade union"--is important. That means that if, for example, an employer finds that his employees are in a trade union which bargains hard, or which vigorously pursues health and safety issues on the shop floor, or which robustly follows through common law damages claims, he can seek to transfer the bargaining arrangements to a union that he regards as less vigorous. Under the amendment, he could claim reasonableness in the sense that his action related to the commercial viability of his concern--that he was changing the bargaining arrangements merely to reduce his insurance premiums. The amendment thus brings about a major change in the law. The proposal is a shabby device to set in motion a procedure to impose the employer's will on the work force. Despite the assurances of the Secretary of State, it constitutes a change in the law, and I urge Conservative Members to consider very seriously, and to uphold, the rights of individual trade unionists by voting against it.
Mr. Etherington : I am proud to declare my interest as a member, since 1957, of what was then the Amalgamated Engineering Union and as a member of the National Union of Mineworkers from 1963 to the present. I am sponsored by the National Union of Mineworkers. I am quite willing to let anyone know the extent of that sponsorship and I am very proud of it. There is nothing secret ; everything is quite transparent.
I was interested to note that, in seeking to justify his support for Lords amendment No. 8, the Secretary of State repeatedly referred to the need for "clarity" and "clarification". I had always understood that one sought clarity and clarification when something was opaque, not when it was transparent. If ever anything has been transparent it has been the Government's manoeuvrings in seeking to strengthen the rights and powers of employers against those whom they have the privilege to employ.
I have never been and have never wanted to be a pedantic lawyer, although I have great respect for the legal profession and, indeed, for hon. Members with a legal background. As we talked of the various sections and subsections of legislation going back as far as 1975--and even, on one occasion, as far as 1908--it crossed my mind that it was rather unfortunate that we were spending so much time discussing the law, as this is not a legal but a
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political matter. It is about power--and, in particular, about the creation of more power for the Government's supporters, at their request.It was interesting to hear the differing views that were advanced about what the relationship between employers and employees should be. I agree that, in an ideal world, it would be nice to achieve consensus. I have had the pleasure for many years of working in an industry--in fact, in more than one industry--where, for most of the time, there was consensus. I was pleased to hear the speech of the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley). I hope that he will not be offended if I say that much of what he said reminded me of the attitude that Lloyd George took during the Liberal Government of 1906, when he supported the rights of employees on many occasions. I say that as a compliment to the hon. Gentleman.
I was interested, too, to hear that the hon. Member for Eltham is a member of the Institute of Personnel Management. In the rather better days before 1979, I attended a diploma course on industrial relations at Durham university at which I rubbed shoulders with personnel managers of firms with which I had nothing to do. We used to discuss something that I never hear mentioned now--pluralism. The hon. Member for Eltham understands that concept well. Pluralism is fairly simple : it means that the employer has a right to look after his interests and that those who work for him have a right to look after theirs. That is a basic human right that the Government seem to be seeking to destroy.
That philosophy applied for many years in this country. Many Governments-- even on this occasion, Conservative Governments--have introduced legislation that has improved the rights of workers in relation to their employers. I am talking not about their individual rights, but about their rights at the workplace and in relation to their employer. Conservative Governments have introduced such improvements, although one has to go back quite a number of years to find examples. In case any member of the Government should be interested in the subject, may I recommend a book called "The History of British Trade Unionism", written by Henry Pelling, from which they will learn how pluralism developed.
Under that system, if a reasonable equation was arrived at between the rights of employers and the rights of their employees and if each was able to look after his own interests, conflicts could be resolved where they arose. We have seen that happen under various Governments--particularly in wartime, when we had compulsory arbitration and the protection of employment and so on--and it worked. For most of my teenage years and, indeed, for 20 years thereafter, I lived in a society that recognised that fact. Since 1979, however, all that has changed. I find it appalling that the Government, in the six pieces of employment legislation that they have introduced--which have been referred to extensively--have referred only to improvements in the individual rights of trade union members. "Improving that right in relation to whom?", one asks. Machinery can be set whereby anyone who has a complaint against his union and decides not to use the democratic means within that union can get redress and get legal aid. People can act against the trade union of which they are a member, but not against their employer. I defy Conservative Members to point to one piece of legislation that has been passed since they came to power that would fit those criteria. The Government have gone out of their way to look after the interests of those who
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sponsor them, all the time trying to give the impression that they are being even-handed and looking after the rights of the individual.9 pm
The Government do not seem to understand--or perhaps they understand only too well--that individual rights within a collective remain individual rights. They cannot be separated. We cannot overlook the many years in Britain which were prosperous for the country and for near-full employment. People were working full time and while there were bound to be disparities between wage rates, the vast majority of people were content in their jobs.
The Conservatives would argue that through those years the trade unions had too much power. That is not borne out by the facts. Trade union members have rights across the spectrum of life--affecting housing, the law and so on--but, unfortunately, the least rights they have affect their very trade unionism. Their trade union rights are among the poorest in the European Community.
We have heard much about the rights of collectives in Japan. We have been told for years how marvellous the Japanese system is. It cannot be that good, or the British Government would have given trade unionists in this country the same rights as their counterparts in Japan.
The debate is not about the amendment but about a Government who are paranoid over the so-called power of trade unions. They are desperate to ensure that, whenever there is conflict between employer and employee, they side with the employer, regardless of the circumstances of the case. We have seen that time and again since 1979. I have yet to hear a Minister say that an employer is wrong and a trade union is right.
Labour Members are constantly taunted about the relationship between our party and the trade union movement. I regard it as a healthy, open relationship which allows people to have their say and in which democracy prevails. Conservative Members are the last people on earth to lecture us about individual rights because they do not begin to understand what democracy means, unless and until it affects their interests and power and the way in which they manipulate that power.
We have been told by the Conservatives for years that if employers and business can be free, the country will become prosperous. We are seeing the results of Government efforts in that respect. The manufacturing base has gone down at probably the same rate of knots as the power of trade unions has been reduced, yet the Government still do not see the link. Once the Government begin to remove people's rights and extinguish equality between employers and employees, strife is created, and that strife has a debilitating effect on the economy.
I accept that there are good employers, but this legislation is not aimed at them. It is a panacea for bad employers and there are plenty of those. There are plenty of sweatshop employers in Britain. People are being paid £1.50 an hour for working 50 or even 60 hours a week. The Government think that there is something wrong with people asking for a 48-hour week. Supporters of the Government are earning a thousand times more than some low-paid workers and Conservative Members think that that is fair and equitable.
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There are no market forces for trade unions because the Government have gradually been ensuring that that market is shut off and the shut-off has not been all that gradual in some cases. The Government preach free market economics, with employers being free to compete and do what they like. But people representing working folk cannot have that same freedom. They must be curtailed.Conservative propaganda blaming the trade unions for everything has been good over the years. They have neutered the trade unions and the country is in a bigger mess than ever. If Goebbels could return to life, he would realise what a failure he had been compared with the indoctrination that the Conservatives have undertaken. But the public are becoming wiser and trade unions are gaining in popularity. That is another reason why employers must be bolstered. I should like to develop that theme in detail, but I would anger my Whips if I continued for much longer. This will let the country as a whole see the unfairness of the Government. I hope that the hon. Member for Eltham and other hon. Members will see the sense in voting against the amendment and getting back to a decent system of industrial relations.
Mr. Burden : When I was reading the amendment, I cast my eyes to the top of the Bill that it was supposed to be amending. The title of the Bill has always mystified me a little. The first part of it, relating to trade union reform, is confusing, because the Bill does not contain a great deal of reform. One finds a lot of red tape as far as trade unions are concerned but not a great deal in terms of reform.
I may be a naive sort of soul but, when I see the term "employment rights", I think that the Bill should contain some rights for employees. Any extra rights that have been given to individual employees were opposed by the Government in the first place--but they were forced to accept them by Europe. In Committee and on Second and Third Reading, I heard Ministers explain and claim how the rights for employees are increasing. When they were about to abolish the wages councils, they said that it was not about cutting pay but about improving the rights of employees and employers as free agents to get together to negotiate rates for the job.
I could not see--I have not come across it since that time--a large number of low-paid workers rushing forward to thank the Government for their extra rights. Perhaps the cat was let out of the bag by Lord Ullswater on the rights that the Government were talking about. His words in another place have been echoed in many ways by Conservative Members tonight :
"It is, of course, the employer's right to decide exactly how he wants to negotiate with his staff. After all, no one but the employer in question can know all the relevant circumstances and can decide what is best for his business. It has always been this Government's policy to ensure that employers have the freedom to act in this way."--[ Official Report, House of Lords, 24 May 1993 ; Vol. 546, c. 22.]
When the Government talk about employment rights, it is rather one-sided. Employment rights exist only as far as the employer is concerned and of course it is not uniform. If an employer decides to exercise rights in a way in which the Government disapprove, the law is changed to restrict them. For example, if an employer decides, in free agreement with his or her employees, to enter into a union membership agreement, that is restricted by law. There are no rights or freedoms as far as that is concerned. If an employer decides that he or she would have an
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agreement with trade unions for check-off, that is restricted because the Government changed the*XOWithin six days of a court judgment coming out which the Government found inconvenient, we had an announcement that the law would be changed. Suddenly we had a willingness to legalise bribery, cajoling and punishing people simply for saying that they want to use their trade union membership. The Government say that it is nothing to do with trade union membership--they say that they uphold the right of an individual to remain a member of a trade union--except of course in the case of GCHQ. They are happy for people to be trade union members in most situations, as long as they do not avail themselves of the benefits of membership.
The amendment is not simply an attack on collective bargaining and collective organisation ; it also jeopardises the right of employees to choose to have individual representation by a trade union. If that does not jeopardise the right of trade union membership, I sometimes wonder where the Government's logic would lead if it were applied to political parties.
I can imagine Ministers saying, "We have changed the law for political parties. Of course, we have no objection whatever to people joining the political party of their choice." The only thing that is not allowed is for that political party to put up a candidate for election. That is the logic behind the Government's amendment. This is a charter to bully trade unionists and deny them bonuses. It is a charter to ensure that it is always a trade union member who ends up working the anti-social shift. It is a charter that says that a trade union member can be denied promotion. Yet the Government say that this has nothing to do with victimisation of trade union members and that it is just permitting an employer, in the words of Lord Ullswater, to
"achieve an organisational or strategic purpose."--[ Official Report, House of Lords , 24 May 1993, Vol. 546, c. 23.]
I wonder, considering those terms, whether the noble Lord writes the scripts for "Yes Minister".
I do not know where some Tory Members have been in recent years. Are they unaware of the fear of many employees, particularly in firms, of which I have had some experience immediately prior to privatisation, when the blue- eyed boy or blue-eyed girl syndrome is so clear? Employees fear that, if they step out of line or do something of which their employer disapproves-- in some cases, that could easily be merely being a trade union member in an area of the business where the employer feels that trade union membership is inappropriate--they could be discriminated against and find their career prospects in jeopardy. If the amendment is agreed, in future their pay would also be in jeopardy.
The amendment panders to all the worst prejudices of the Conservative party. I am pleased that some Conservative Members have principles and are prepared to accept that it is not necessarily contradictory for Conservative Members to support the right of an individual to practise trade union membership rather than just to have it, but it seems that most Tory Members will troop through the Lobby with the majority tonight.
They will not recognise that they would improve industrial relations if they ensured that workers who have been subject to such discrimination, for example at Timex,
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had greater rights. They would be doing something positive for the workers who have been dismissed at Burnsalls in the west midlands near my constituency. Such would be the positive signs of a Government who were interested in improving industrial relations rather than just knocking trade unions once again.I would applaud the introduction of a statutory right to guarantee trade union recognition if a majority of workers in a particular firm supported it. That is not the purpose of tonight's debate. At present, trade union recognition can be removed, as has been the case for a long period, purely by an employer's diktat. Tonight the Government are taking that an important stage further : they are not just giving employers the right to derecognise the collective organisation of employees, however many employees want it, but the right to jeopardise the practical realisation of trade union membership itself. That is almost certainly contrary to European law, as many of my hon. Friends have explained.
Journalists near my constituency who work for Reed Elsevier have approached me. Why, they ask, because they happen to work in Britain, can they be pushed, cajoled and shoved to accept individual contracts with no recourse, whereas people who work for the same firm in other parts of Europe have rights?
No Minister or Conservative Member has made any mention today of the buzz words that they use so often--"the citizens charter". I wonder why? Perhaps it is because, for the Government, when it comes to trade union membership, the rights to citizenship suddenly go out of the window. As my hon. Friends have already said, trade union members will end up with fewer rights than those enjoyed by the members of any other organisation.
In years to come, people will study the debate and work out the Government's objectives. They will see through the statements made in another place and the protestations of Ministers and Conservative Members about their support for trade union membership. People will come to appreciate how the law was changed, and they will see that act as the latest in a long series of attacks on the rights of ordinary people to work collectively to ensure basic rights of pay, conditions of service and fair treatment. It is that principle of organisation and working together that gets right up the Government's nose. The Opposition will continue to support the principle of collective organisation, however, because it is an essential part of democracy. But it seems that democracy is something that the Government do not understand.
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Mr. Winnick : I declare my interest. Although I am not sponsored, my constituency party receives a rather modest sum from the union of which I am a member.
As my hon. Friends have said, the Government are motivated by their attitude of sheer malice towards trade unions. They have displayed that attitude since they were elected 14 years ago. My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) said that the final objective of the Government will be to abolish trade unions. Even this Government will not do that, but they will do their utmost, as they have done in the past 14 years, to undermine, weaken and erode the role of trade unions in the workplace. Even the Lords amendment, despicable though it is, should not cause any surprise to my hon. Friends.
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If there is any question about where the Government stand on trade union rights and recognition, I refer hon. Members to an Adjournment debate on 11 March on the bitter industrial dispute at Burnsall's factory in the west midlands. That dispute continues and it should cause grave concern, because the work force have been treated with utter contempt.My hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds), as the constituency Member, carried out his duties and raised the matter in the House. It is interesting to note what the then Under-Secretary of State for Employment said in that debate. Certainly the Minister of State would echo his remarks, word for word. My hon. Friend stressed that the work force had held ballots and that they had unanimously called for their trade union to be recognised. The Under-Secretary of State said of trade union recognition :
"To argue that because there was a ballot in favour of recognition Burnsall's should agree to that can only be founded on the completely unacceptable principle that recognition arrangements can properly be decided by workers alone. That cannot be correct, as it fails to take proper account of the employers' necessary freedom to decide the terms on which they will work."-- [Official Report, 11 March 1993 ; Vol. 220, c, 1207.]
That attitude illustrates that no matter what ballots are held and no matter the wishes of the workers, they make no difference. Mr. Michael Forsyth indicated assent.
Mr. Winnick : The Minister agrees. In his opinion and that of the Government, the management should be the deciding factor. No matter how many ballots may be held, no matter their unanimous result, the wishes of the work force are of no interest to the Government. Despite what the Government have said about balloting, the citizens charter and the rest of the cosmetic nonsense, ultimately, they believe that the management of the company should be the decisive factor and the work force should do as they are told.
Mr. Forsyth : No doubt the hon. Gentleman will recall that, when a Labour Government introduced the measure requiring compulsory recognition of trade unions, it was later abandoned. Even the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service said that the whole thing was unworkable.
Mr. Winnick : As the Minister knows, there is a difference between the compulsory recognition of unions and saying--which no Labour Minister would dream of saying--that it makes no difference what is done in ballots or what decisions are reached by the work force in secret ballots. "It cannot be decided by workers alone" : that illustrates the background of the debate and the contemptuous attitude of the Government towards the working people of our country, particularly the millions of people who want to belong to a trade union.
When we criticised, attacked and denounced communist and fascist dictatorships, time and again the yardstick that we used to define them was not simply the denial of the right to vote--a fundamental right--but another yardstick associated with civil liberty : the right of assembly, the right to vote secretly to elect Governments and to have a free press. It was the right to belong to a genuine union and have that union recognised at one's
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place of employment. It is a sad commentary on today's society that so many people are penalised for belonging to a trade union. The Court of Appeal made the position perfectly clear. When it was deciding on the cases that form the background to the amendment, it said that the aim was to penalise people for being members of a union or to deter them from remaining members. If the amendment is passed, it will be used by countless other employers to try to bribe people to stop them belongong to a trade union--they will deny employees pay increases. Today, that is illegal. If the amendment is carried because the Government are able to organise their majority, such a practice will become legitimate.When my right hon. and hon. Friends say that the Government are corrupt, they are right--the Government are corrupted by power. If anyone has any illusions--none of my hon. Friends is likely to have them--they need only look on pages 1 and 3 of today's edition of The Independent to see that the Conservative party, to which Ministers belong, was willing to accept money from whatever sources, no matter how often it was told that the company making the donation was breaking the law. I am, of course, referring to Nadir. Ministers were not concerned that Mr. Nadir had not revealed the contributions in the company accounts.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris) : Order. The hon. Gentleman's remarks do not seem to have much to do with amendment No. 8.
Mr. Winnick : My remarks are relevant to the fact that the Government are corrupt and determined to penalise people for belonging to a trade union. The Government are only too happy to accept money from sources which, at the time, must have seemed dubious and are now known to have been criminal. Therefore, I hope that not just one Conservative Member but a few more will have the honesty and integrity to know that what is being done today is absolutely wrong. When the Government's record is considered, the amendment will be the evidence of how corrupt and sick they have become.
Mr. McAllion : I declare an interest as I am sponsored by the National Union of Civil and Public Servants. Probably more important is the fact that I represent constituents who have today become the latest victims of the collusion between the Government and bad employers who want to use mass unemployment to drive down the wages and conditions of workers in this country. I shall set the record straight on the relevance of the Timex dispute in Dundee to the debate.
The Timex management and the authors of the clause share a common objective --the destruction of organised labour. The Timex management took a hard line at the start of the dispute when the issue at stake was the rotation of lay-offs because of a lack of contracts. Management was completely instransigent and refused to make any concessions to the workers, in the knowledge that that would lead to a strike. When the workers were outside the factory gates they could be sacked and Timex could seek to employ a new non-union work force whose members would accept personal contracts containing vicious cuts in wages and conditions.
That approach did not work because of the magnificent fight by the sacked workers and the magnificent support that they received from the labour and trade union
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movement throughout the United Kingdom. The amendment is a Government attempt at a completely different approach which will have the same effect. Instead of someone who agrees to a personal contract suffering a cut in wages, as happened at Timex, those who agree to such a contract will receive extra wages.That approach will completely undermine the point of belonging to a trade union. What is the point of paying trade union dues when, by way of a personal contract, one can receive higher wages than could be obtained through collective bargaining? People will be discouraged from belonging to trade unions and when membership declines and the unions disappear, the employer will have a completely free hand in personal contracts and will impose whatever cuts in wages and conditions he thinks fit.
Perhaps some Conservative Members think that that will not happen. I was a member of the Industry-Parliament Trust with IBM which prided itself on never having trade unions because, through personal contracts, it guaranteed that none of its workers would ever face compulsory redundancy. IBM has now hit hard times and its workers know that the company is not true to its word because they are being made compulsorily redundant.
The Government say that they are proud of their record on industrial relations. I hope that they are proud of what happened in Dundee today. The Government have advertised in German newspapers for investors to come here because of cheap labour. They should not be surprised when some of the companies that are already here take them at their word and try to impose vicious cuts in wages.
Mr. Raymond S. Robertson (Aberdeen, South) rose
Mr. McAllion : I am not giving way, because the Front-Bench speakers are anxious to deliver the winding-up speeches. If the hon. Gentleman had any interest at all in the welfare of workers in Dundee or anywhere else in the United Kingdom, he would be on the Opposition side of the House. I shall give way briefly.
Mr. Robertson : Will the hon. Gentleman take two minutes to explain the service that trade unions rendered in Dundee five years ago when they lost the area the massive investment of a Ford plant?
Mr. McAllion : That is not true. The hon. Gentleman well knows that the union that he backed at that time, the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union, was today the victim of the actions of multinationals.
If the Government are at all interested in helping workers, instead of shackling the trade unions they should do something about the over-mighty power of multinationals which are running riot across the country against the interests of workers.
Mr. Sam Galbraith (Strathkelvin and Bearsden) : I was not in the House during the passage of most of the trade union legislation of the past decade. However, my understanding from tales of folklore is that the Government Benches were full of baying Tory Members hounding the trade unions. Now there is an interesting contrast. Numerous Conservative Members have said that this legislation is absolutely vital. We are led to believe that without it this country will never recover from the deep recession, yet the Tories are running out of speakers.
The hon. Member for Hertfordshire, North (Mr. Heald) started to speak at 7.53 in a debate that it is agreed
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will finish at about 10 o'clock. Embarrassed Whips were sent to the Tea Rooms and managed to drag out another Tory, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter), who delivered a perfunctory few remarks at 8.35. I hope that the Tories are embarrassed, but it is more likely that they are bored because even they are getting fed up with bashing the unions, as they have done day in and day out for the past decade.I was interested to hear how the new Secretary of State would tackle the amendment with which he has been landed. He comes to the Department with a reputation for decency, generosity of spirit and liberalism. [Interruption.] Those are the stories I hear in the Tea Room ; I do not speak from personal experience. He did not make a good justification for that. I had the impression that he was embarrassed by what he had to say. Certainly the Minister of State will not suffer from that affliction. His only embarrassment will be that the amendment does not remove completely the right to be a member of a trade union as he would have liked.
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My understanding of the Secretary of State's analysis and the reasons behind the amendment was that they had nothing to do with collective bargaining. He tried to tease union membership and collective bargaining apart, to separate them from each other and therefore to suggest that the amendment had no effect on trade union membership. That is somewhat disingenuous. As many of my hon. Friends have said, the two issues are closely connected.
If one is a member of a trade union but cannot exercise that right, it removes de facto the right to be a trade unionist. My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) used as an example the credit card that cannot be used. My example is that the right to free speech is valueless if one can exercise it only in a sound-proofed room with no one else there. It was the same when the Minister tried to make that disingenuous separation between trade union membership and collective bargaining. It is not just collective bargaining that will be lost ; it is the right for a trade union to represent its members with their employer on any issue other than health and safety. It effectively denudes the member of any rights whatsoever and is therefore a direct attack. So the Minister's first point was wrong.
A further important issue is the financial inducement or bribery that is involved. The amendment legalises bribery and corruption. That should be anathema to hon. Members on both sides of the House. Even the Minister was embarrassed by that.
The Minister tried to justify the amendment by saying that it was just a clarification of the law. I am not a lawyer, but, by golly, we should beware anyone saying that something is just a clarification of the law. The law is a many and varied thing that works in many ways. We should beware the lawyer who is just here to be helpful and simply wants to clarify the law.
The Government got themselves into some difficulty in justifying that. First, the Minister put forward the proposition that the law was absolutely clear cut and straightforward. If that was the case, I am not sure why it needed clarifying, but it was clarified. Another argument put forward by the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, North was that the law was not clear at all ;
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in fact, it was a shambles and everyone had different interpretations of it. They could at least have come up with the same excuses and briefed one another better.The reason behind the confusion is that that argument is wrong. I agree with the Minister that the law was clear. The Court of Appeal has made it clear. If it was not clear, the court has clarified it. Everyone agrees about that. There was no stream of cases against employers trying to remove the rights of trade union members because employers knew that they would be in breach of section 146 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. The Minister proposed not clarification, but simply changing the law once again to the benefit of the employers. Once again, it was an attack on the trade unions.
The Minister's third point was that somehow or other the amendment is not an attack on the trade unions. I would believe that a bit more if an amendment put forward in the other place had been accepted. Baroness Turner of Camden moved an amendment to insert, among other things,
"not to discriminate against employees who were members of an independent trade union".
That would have made it clear that, however the law was changed, it would not discriminate against trade unionists.
Viscount Ullswater indulged in some wonderful double-speak when he said :
"It would provide that in a situation where a tribunal has evidence of two purposes for an employer's action and where the clause provides that it shall therefore consider the negotiating purpose to be the relevant purpose, it will only do so if there is not additional evidence of a principal purpose to discriminate against employees who are trade union members."--[ Official Report, House of Lords, 24 May 1993 ; Vol. 546, c. 88-89.]
That is just a start. He says that again, two or three paragraphs later, in many more words. In other words, the purpose was clearly to discriminate against trade unions. The law was clear. The Government have confused it. We shall be back in the law courts again seeking further clarification of the procedure.
The amendment was slipped in at the last minute in an underhand, sneaky, sleekit way without the opportunity for due consideration. It is a mark of the Government's weakness. Here they are, unable to accept the Court of Appeal's ruling. They pretend that they are a macho Government, show their weakness and immediately change the law. They do not even wait for the matter to go to appeal in the other place. They do not consult anyone else. They simply get in there while they can and change the law in order to establish that, with all their powers, they can do what they like. That is not a sign of strength ; it is a sign of weakness, ably reflected by the Government.
The amendment also shows how the Government are in thrall to management. No matter what the Court of Appeal says, no matter what their international obligations, no matter what common justice dictates, no matter what decency suggests, everything in industrial law has to be for the benefit of management and employers : they are the only ones who have rights.
Whenever there was a conflict in Committee between employee and employer and management, the Government always came down on the side of the employer, as if they had some inalienable right, as if there were some inherent law, such as the law of gravity or Newton's third law of motion, be it ethical or physical, which I never got to the bottom of, a right not given to
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employees but always given to employers. The Government are in the thrall of management. When management and employers say jump, the Government jump on their behalf.Not only was the amendment introduced in a sneaky, sleekit way at the last minute, without consultation, not quite at the dead of night, but certainly as the night was drawing in, but the Government indulge in double-speak. The Conservative research department brief on employment and training, a laughable document which is a good read for anyone who has not read the Dandy or the Beano for a while, says :
"Conservative Governments have transformed Britain's poor industrial relations record and have created"--
this is the Government's aim--
"a fairer balance between employers and trade unions."
The brief goes on to say that the Government's aims are "to defend individual liberty"--
tell that to people--
" and to restore a fairer balance between employers and trade unions ; and to make remedies available".
The Government's idea of a fairer balance is simply once again to remove the rights of employees and hand all powers and rights to the all-powerful employers.
It is a pity that the clause has not been given due consideration. It is probably technically flawed ; certainly it would benefit from further debate. I have already dealt with the argument that it is not about bashing the trade unions. An amendment tabled in another place, which was turned down by the Government, would have clarified the matter.
I believe that the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) referred to the words
"the tribunal shall regard the purpose mentioned in paragraph (a) as the purpose for which the employer took the action, unless it considers that the action was such as no reasonable employer would take".
I am familiar and quite happy with the phrase
"such as no reasonable employer would take" ;
similar phrases are used in medical evidence. References are made to reasonable doctors with equal standards behaving in a reasonable manner in, for instance, cases involving negligence.
As the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery pointed out, that is not the crux of the amendment, although it will certainly give employers a field day. The crux is in the words that follow : "having regard to the purpose mentioned in paragraph (a)." Perhaps the Minister will clarify that. Does it mean that paragraph (a) must be judged reasonable or otherwise--which would be the decent thing--or does it merely mean that the action taken must be reasonable in order to achieve the purpose in paragraph (a)? That purpose could be entirely unreasonable, but perhap that will not be considered, provided that the steps taken are themselves reasonable. In such circumstances, the test of reasonableness will relate not to the action taken by the employer against his employee, but to the steps that he takes to achieve his aim. [Interruption.] My manager is giving me a tick-tack message. As I am generally well behaved and an extremely reasonable chap in both action and demeanour, I shall conclude my speech.
Tonight, we are preparing to introduce yet another piece of trade union legislation. All the trade union legislation that has been introduced in the past decade has been predicated on the premise that Britain's industrial decline can be set at the unions' door : it has all been caused by trade union militancy. If only legislation could be
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