Political Commentary

The unions and 'Bullock'

John Grigg Royal commissions and committees of inquiry are normally set up either to buy time for the government of the day on an issue which it is reluctant to face, orto expose the complexity of a subject which eager partisans are discussing in oversimplified terms. The ideal is that a group consisting of major spokesmen for conflicting interests, together with a few independent 'experts' or 'people of goodwill,' Should obtain and digest a mass of evidence, and then arrive at a consensus. But this ideal Is often not achieved, and in some cases it is best that it should not be achieved, because What may appear to be ideal in theory is not always ideal in practice. The Bullock committee was appointed not to weigh the pros and cons'of 'industrial democracy,' or even to define the concept, but to advise on the implementation of a Policy already assumed to be desirable, and already largely defined. The committee's remit was to consider how best to achieve `a i radical extension of industrial democracy . the control of companies by means of tePresentation on hoards of directors . . . gccepting the essential role of trade union "rganisations in this process' (my italics). In °ther words, the committee was merely asked to suggest means of institutionalising trade union power in the private sector. It is unjust, therefore, to criticise the nlaJority report for recommending a further extension of trade union power, because that is what it was specifically required to do. Or rather the fact of increased trade union P9wer was taken for granted, and the conihrnittee had no other task than to consider cl‘v best to accommodate it.

Two very prominent trade union leaders,

and one TUC bureaucrat, were chosen to sit °n the committee, while management was trePresented by three substantial figures from he world of big .business. The balance was rtiade uP of three academics (including the chairman), a solicitor and the Directortherteral of Fair Trading (who resigned in (.,e middle of last year to become Directorkieneral of the CBI).

The choice of Lord Bullock as chairman

Lwas hardly surprising. To Sir Harold Wilson had the advantages of being a fellow :orkshireman, a fellow Oxford meritocrat isnd a fellow moderate reformist with a .iatred of the extreme Left. To trade suirlionists, it must have been hoped, his ...atus as the sympathetic biographer of Bevin would be an asset, while his tIrofound historical knowledge would help whole committee to see the job it was "°Ing in perspective. As everybody knows, the committee did Is work very quickly and did not arrive at a

consensus. If it was intended to keep the issue of industrial democracy in abeyance for a longish period, it did not do what was expected of it ; and if it was intended to produce a scheme agreed by top union and management representatives, it must also be regarded as a disappointment. But there is reason to believe that, in this particular case, what has happened may turn out to have been for the best. 'Bullock' has had an appallingly bad press, and at the moment seems to have few wholehearted friends. But the verdict of history may be kinder.

Surely it is of great significance that Jack Jones and Clive Jenkins, not beloved of the nation's moderates (nor, incidentally, of each other), have both signed a majority report which concedes the right of all employees (not merely trade unionists) in large companies to decide by secret ballot whether or not they want employee representation at board level, and which also abandons the claim for undiluted parity on boards. These concessions mark a shift towards the centre which would be less valuable if the three businessmen on the committee had welcomed it. By producing a minority report, however, they have made the .report signed by Mr Jones and Mr Jenkins seem more radical than it actually is.

There are no grounds for suspecting collusion, but if the minority report had been a secretly agreed ploy it could not be more convenient, A unanimous report would have been denounced as a sell-out by the rank and file on both sides. The division of the committee, apparently on sectional lines, has enabled the leaders to move closer to each other behind a smokescreen of controversy.

It is also very important that the majority report is being attacked by trade unionists as well as industrialists and Tory politicians, and that trade union attacks upon it are coming from the right as well as the left of the movement. There are those who denounce boardroom participation as incompatible with free collective bargaining and the independence of trade unions, and this group of critics includes right-wingers like Mr Chapplc and left-wingers like Mr Scargill. Mr Basnett, an outstanding moderate, has condemned the majority proposals as 'not radical enough,' whereas Mr Scanlon has merely called for 'an expansion of industrial relations and collective bargaining in the private sector.' Trade union reactions are, therefore, as varied and confused as the Government could wish.

There should be no difficulty in modifying the proposals almost out of recognition before any Bill is presented to Parliament. But one crucial feature that will not be modified is the acceptance of trade unions as the basis for any scheme of industrial democracy, once the principle is endorsed by the employees in any big company, voting secretly on a sufficiently large poll.

This, to many, is a repugnant feature of the whole concept of industrial democracy as dictated to the Bullock committee by its terms of reference, and according to a survey carried out by the Market Research Society it may also be repugnant to most workers. Of about 750 questioned (not, admittedly, a very large sample) 54 per cent favoured the idea of worker-directors, but 89 per cent said that they should be nominated by all employees, not by unions.

Peter Walker has suggested that the unions arc not themselves democratic enough to be trusted to operate a system of industrial democracy, and it has also been pointed out that British trade unions are excessively numerous and anarchically fragmented compared with those in West Germany, whose example of industrial democracy is quoted ad nauseam.

The only answer to these objections is that the power of the trade unions is a reality which cannot be ignored or circumvented. Any attempt to establish a parallel "structure of democracy in British industry would be doomed to failure. The unions would not only wreck it ; they would also be driven, by the threat which it would pose to their hard-won prerogatives, into more dangerous and irresponsible courses.

The majority report contains many hints that a scheme of participation based upon the unions would force them into rationalising and reforming themselves. For instance, it is argued that the joint representative committees which would have to be set up in companies with a miscellany of unions would serve as 'a catalyst which would stimulate the changes needed in the machinery of trade unionism' and 'encourage closer working between trade unions on a wide range of issues.'

Nobody, moreover, should miss the point of Lord Bullock's comment that the report started from the assumption of a mixed economy. Whatever the practical snags and absurdities of 2x +y and other detailed proposals, it is surely much to be thankful for that Mr Jones and Mr Jenkins, at least, are committed, by implication, to trying to make a success of our mixed economy, rather than to persisting with the sterile and unpopular policy of unlimited nationalisation.