
Issue No 68		25 August 2000

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Interview

New Unionist

Interview With John Monks By Peter Lewis

Britain's Trade Union Congress secretary John Monks on life under Blair and why the future of unionism could well rest in Europe.

There appears to have been an increase in trade union membership in Britain. What's the secret?

There's been a small increase, I'd like to say there's been a much bigger one but there's been a small one and government surveys confirm that. There's two things going on. One is a big increase in employment levels -3.5 million new jobs in ten years, mainly in the private service sector. We've made some inroads in retailing and in financial services but, really, we're only making a bridge at it. It's like Australia. The labour market has changed enormously and very, very quickly. All the trends are the same; declining employment in manufacturing and in primary industry; rapidly rising in private services. These are both base services ? restaurants, hotels, personal services but also the more professional services like IT. Turning unions around to reflect that change in labour market is our biggest task and biggest challenge but, still, the employment levels going up is good news for unions.

Second is the change in political atmosphere. The Blair government hasn't done everything that we want, hasn't done as much as we want, but having a Labour Government is a hell of a lot better than not having a Labour Government. Access, some new rights, some new opportunities�these have been important.

Unlike Australia during the Hawke & Keating years, you haven't entered a formal Accord with the government. What is the relationship? How is it mediated?

Yeah, it's not like the relationships we've had with previous labour governments. In a sense the previous labour governments have always looked to the unions to control wage inflation and that was the heart of the Accord in Australia as well. The fact is that wage inflation is not a major problem in Britain, not a major problem in Europe and the areas where there is wage inflation are the chief executives, the financial services city bonuses. The union sector has not done as well in terms of bargaining as some of these wizz kids and fat cats have achieved. Because we haven't had a real wage inflation problem: therefore there's no incentive for the government to give things to us in exchange for some wage moderation. So that's one aspect.

The second aspect is that the Blair government has to do everything different, new, modern and they didn't want to put themselves in a position where they were dependent to govern on the TUC. That's happened before and the experience was more Whitlam than perhaps the experience of the Accord. I mean I know there's doubts about the Accord aplenty around the ACTU at the moment. Having looked out from Britain � it looks a bloody good thing.

So you wouldn't mind an Accord?

I'd love an Accord or the Irish Pact which is rather similar and has been running for about as long across the Irish sea.

So what haven't you been able to achieve that you would have liked to see a union movement achieve under a labour government?

Let me just start with what we have achieved which is a range of new laws, minimum wages, new rights on trade union recognition where we can get majority membership we can get recognition from an employer or we win a ballot. There's a whole range of individual rights that shore up union activists and union organisers. There's a lot of access, union involvement in a wide range of public policy. So that's the plus side.

The minus side is that we're still the most lightly regulated labour market in the European Union. We have not achieved involvement in economic and social policy to anything like the extent we would like. There's no council that we sit down with the employers and talk through what's the best way of approaching employment, investment, productivity issues, no equivalent of your best management initiative. So we consider ourselves well short of the best international trade union standards. The relationships, frankly, mostly influence the top levels with the Prime Minister. We do business with him on a fairly regular basis. But he won't recreate tripartism because that was seen to have failed in the past in Britain.

What has he replaced it with?

Informal lobbying. So the employer secretary goes and sees him, we go and see him and he tries to do a bit of a balance in between and that in a way maximises the differences between us and the employers and maximises the pressure on him and on the government and minimises the scope for a bit more agreement on things. We're in a virtuous position of reasonable levels of falling unemployment and improving living standards, again not as good as Ireland but pretty good but one problem area is manufacturing which is falling against the Euro which is our main trading zone. But the virtuous circumstances are not taken full advantage of by Blair and I think we could have done better both in terms of our influence for working people and I think we could have laid down some firmer foundations for when the going gets sticky as it will. He's on his own more than he should be.

So where would the policy setting be if there was a closer relationship? Where would the policy settings be different?

Probably not on areas of major excitement for the trade union movement. I think the emphasis would be on skills, the British education and training system you have to say is one of the worst in the European union. I mean unions are absolutely crucial to improving that. Apart from young workers, if any older workers are asked to do training courses, if it's just be the employer they think it's a device for chucking them out if they fail the course. Where the unions are involved, they've got a lot more confidence.

On workplace partnerships, we need a more solid government push on employers to concede those; we've got quite a lot of them around but we haven't got enough. I think it's important that British workers have the same rights as workers in Germany and France to information and consultation rights in advance of decisions being taken that affect them. We saw the difference when Rover were being disposed of by BMW. The German workers reps new in advance -the British workers reps didn't because the law was different in the two countries. The British workers were the ones most affected.

And Blair's half?hearted about the European social agenda that I see as important -not just within Europe -but for all world workers. The whole influence in Australia as well as Britain is from America. And it may be the land of the free but it's also the land of the union buster and it's been very successful in the nineties -therefore it's become the exemplar country around the world economies. In the eighties it was Japan, in the seventies it was Germany, now it's the States. And that stands for privatisation, deregulation, less rights for unions, the whole right wing agenda of Howard and Bush in the States and Hague in Britain. It's all wrapped up in those thoughts. And it's dedicated to diminishing and marginalizing and eliminating, if possible, trade unionism. In contrast, the European model is this social partnership concept, workers rights, a strong welfare state, as balances to corporate power.

For Britain, it also seems to be a choice between embracing that European model or standing apart from it. What's the attitude of the union movement?

Schizophrenic, like the country as a whole. I know Australia's had an identity crisis about tis relationship with the Queen. We've had our identity crisis over our relationship with Europe. The degree of cultural links with the rest of the English speaking world are held in much greater affection than the European Union. Maybe that's to do with the fact that some of our newspaper proprietors are Australian -one in particular -his ethos is the English speaking world because that's who he sells his papers to. The majority of us are in favour of joining the Euro, getting stuck in, building up the European Union. Frankly, in a rather Gallist way to give the United States a run for its money. I don't mean militarily but on economic and social policy.

It's a battle of ideas to build up this social partnership. I mean, the European Union is a bit bigger and a bit richer than the United States and if we could make that work with a critical mass, then it could be a rather different beacon than the law according to the Harvard Business School and Wall Street. America has got many virtues, but it has many vices as well. The European Union has some vices, but the sense of equality, sense of civics and public responsibility and the dignified place for working people is something we must hang onto and export through ILO standards into the developing world.

So where do you see the really interesting new ideas coming from?

The European Union is one; for us the most exciting. The concept of a one market economic entity of 360 million people, which will grow with central and eastern Europe coming in; on all previous examples of Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece, means that they will rise quickly up to the EU average. The gaps are narrowing between the rich Germany and the poor Spain. It seems to be an equalizing thing.

For Britain in about the middle, the mood is still hostile. There's a reluctance to shrug off the imperialist past, which is a necessary condition for this country to face up to its reality. And it's proving a harder job than many of us thought. I think it's important for the country and important for the TUC to be at vanguard of this change. And if we can make trade unionism work in Europe, that helps people in Australia, in the AFL?CIO and in the developing world. Without having an exaggerated view of the TUC's role in the world, there is an opportunity to help big European companies do the right thing all around the world.

Finally, we've heard a lot about New Labour, but your name is synonomous with New Unionism. What is it?

It was a realistic appreciation of where we w ere after being beaten up by economic change and Thatcherism. There was a recognition that we were never going back to huge smokestack industries, we were never going back to the closed shop, we were never going back to easily obtaining the right to take secondary action off any government. And so playing to our strengths was the new unionism. The emphasis was on celebrating union success; when we have good relationships treasure them and build on them and don't be afraid to partner with employers who are trying to do things the right way. This country had been going down the drain � where other European countries had been going up.

So it was about facing up to the fact that Britain was not the world leader or a major power -which many people in Britain still thought we were. And for Britain, it is about accepting that we don't have all the answers. One of the big influences for me were that 1987 ACTU report where Bill Kelty was quoted as saying: I don't think Australia has anything to learn from Britain. It sounds obvious now, but in 1987 in the TUC it came as quite a shock!

There's also been an emphasis on showing how we can be relevant to workers in the new industries, in areas that don't have that homogenous sense of cultural solidarity that our mining communities breeds. We're looking for the new bridges between working people, who are just as insecure and as unequally treated as they've ever been.

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Issue 68 contents

Interview: New Unionist
Britain's Trade Union Congress secretary John Monks on life under Blair and why the future of unionism could well rest in Europe.

History: The Victims of Whiggery
George Loveless, the leader of the rural workers who became the Tolpuddle Martyrs, recorded his ideals and experiences in a pamphlet that brings his story to life.

Economics: The Final Station
Corporatisation was first introduced into Australia by the former Greiner Coalition government. What is 'corporatisation' and who should we hold to account under its prescriptions?

International: Massive Union Win in American Telecom
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) announced on Thursday a settlement with Verizon Communications ending a fifteen day strike by 87,000 telephone workers from Maine to Virginia.

Unions: A Vital Community Service
What keeps the engine of the Australian economy running? Manufacturing productivity, the stock market, exports? Try child care.

Satire: Putin copies Clinton: dead seamen stains reputation
MOSCOW, Tuesday: Russian naval authorities today faced staunch criticism, and the anger of a nation gripped by tragedy, as they conceded that all 118 Russian submariners trapped in the nuclear submarine, the Kursk, had died.

Review: Blow Up The Pokies
Whether it arouses public debate about Gambling is best left to the public but Peter Zangarri thinks Tim Freedman is on a winner with the Whitlam's latest CD.

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