Can the TUC survive?
Peter Paterson
British trade unions, it seems, are in as depressed a state as the companies they negotiate with, and managing director Len Murray has a doleful report to deliver to his assembled shareholders as they gather this weekend at Blackpool for the 113th annual Trades Union Congress.
The TUC itself is almost broke — its deficit last year exceeded £400,000 — and Member unions already hard hit by falling membership rolls and consequently reduced income will have to find the money for higher affiliation fees for the fourth year running. Giving more to the TUC is something that can be tolerated in an 'onward and upward' atmosphere, but 1981 has been a hard year for the movement, and most unions are already asking their diminishing numbers of members to pay higher subscriptions.
In fact, this has been a year which union leaders would like to forget, and next week cannot be over quickly enough for most of them. Starting at the level of their ambition to have a decisive say in national policy, they have witnessed 12 months of sharp decline, ignored by Mrs Thatcher and her ministers (although a TUC deputation was allowed to see the Prime Minister — to discuss not the economy but the inner-city riots — just before they caught their train to Blackpool on Tuesday) and with the Woodcock corridors-of-power strategy lying in ruins.
The alternative to partnership with, and influence over, government as posed by the late Mr Woodcock, a predecessor of Mr Murray's, was for the unions to take to the streets: a course he regarded as selfdefeating. But the TUC has not even been able to organise the kind of rally or demonstration that would frighten a hostile government, certainly since Mr Scargill's early days, or the protests against Mr Heath's 1971 Industrial Relations Act. This Year's major effort, the unemployment march from Liverpool to London had its moments, but made no perceptible impact on Mrs Thatcher, who can only be moved, it seems, by the threat of a miners' strike.
Nevertheless, the TUC has continued doggedly to present its 'alternative economic strategy' throughout the year, climaxing earlier this month with the proposal that the Government should embark on a reflationary package costing £24,000 million. In spite of the extreme unlikelihood of Mr Murray and his colleagues on the TUC General Council being able to persuade the Government of the wisdom of this plan, it will form the optimistic centrepiece for many of the debates at Blackpool.
The central need is to keep up morale. With membership declining, this is no time for defeatist — or even realistic — talk. The idea cannot be allowed to gain ground that union dues are no longer a guarantee against inflation, or that the energies of many union officials are nowadays directed less to pursuing wage claims than to a desperate recruitment drive in an attempt to stop the rot. The difficulty that presents itself, of course, is that too much fighting talk at Blackpool about how industry can afford to meet higher wage bills will look like confirmation of Sir Geoffrey Howe's claim that the recession is over.
A similar contradiction could emerge when the TUC debates the possibility of further legal inroads on trade union immunities as a sequel to Mr Prior's Employment Act. For it is difficult to equate a rejection of legal controls over union activities while insisting on the right to continue conscripting workers into trade unions through the closed shop system.
Given the dispirited atmosphere now afflicting the industrial wing of the Labour movement, it is a stroke of good fortune — viewed from this narrow angle — that the TUC's deliberations are likely to be eclipsed by the excitement of the struggle for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party. They may not count for much with the Tory Government, but with their allocation of 40 per cent of the electoral college votes, the trade union delegations will be wooed and flattered by Messrs Benn, Healey and Silkin. Indeed, for the first time, all three candidates will meet in a public debate on the Congress fringe, having been appearing separately at individual union conferences since Easter.
Thanks largely to Mr Benn, the union leaders are coming under increasing pressure to democratise their organisations, and in particular properly to consult their members before they cast their bloc votes at Brighton on 27 September. Some have already instituted consultative procedures — usually of a non-binding kind — while the majority are content to defend their existing methods. It is perfectly understandable, in view of the lack of Whitehall sunshine and patronage falling on union leaders in these hard times, that they should wish to keep their more amusing perks — of which their major role in Labour Party affairs is the greatest — to themselves, even if the whirlwind will be reaped should Mr Benn emerge the victor.
Perhaps their importance in Labour politics explains the extraordinary blindness displayed by the union leaders towards the rise of the Social Democrats. Some of the MP defectors to the SDP were unionsponsored: one, Tom Bradley was actually president of a union, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association. Apart, however, from the combative Mr Frank Chapple of the Electricians, who appeared at one stage to be flirting with the SDP, the new party might not exist so far as the TUC is concerned. Discounting those unions which are not affiliated to the Labour Party anyway, it seems extraordinary that politically aware union leaders should continue to act as though the two-party system is not under threat, and that the electoral pendulum will inexorably give Labour another turn in government at the next general election.
They may be right, of course, but it seems odd that they should not be preparing at any rate to hedge their bets a little, if only to increase the pressure they can exert on Labour to pull itself together and refrain from damaging internal squabbling. Instead, the constant theme remains: it is impossible to have any realistic dealings with Mrs Thatcher and her crew, but the TUC will continue to draw up plans and devise policies which can be put into effect when Labour comes into power. When Mr Foot steps into Number Ten, all will be well — or so it is said.
No-one seems to be giving any thought to what the unions will do if Labour does not resume office; if a Social Democrat-Liberal alliance wins; if the newcomers hold the balance of power; or if, horror of horrors, Mrs Thatcher secures re-election. Barring accidents, there's still some time — perhaps almost three years — to go before we all march off to the polls again. In the meantime, the question no-one will be asking at Blackpool next week is: if hope deferred is not fulfilled, can the TUC survive after 1984?
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