Lack of Leadership
Iain MacWhirter - writing in The Herald the other day had some interesting things to say about the role of the trrade unions - in these harsh economic times.
Here's part of what Iain had to say - on the ongoing public sector pensions dispute:
"But the unions seem unable at the moment to provide intellectual or moral leadership. Yesterday they announced they will be launching a winter of discontent, a rolling general strike, not over the failures of economic policy, but over relatively obscure changes to their pension arrangements. There may be an argument that public sector pensions are justified, but it is hard to make when the vast majority of workers don’t have them.
The row is about the Government’s insistence that, because of an ageing population and declining tax revenues, the six million public sector workers need to increase their pension payments and work longer before retirement. Given that final salary pensions, or indeed any kind of defined benefit pensions scarcely exist outside the public sector, this industrial action will, I fear, be met by indifference or even outright hostility from the vast majority of workers who have no such pension rights.
The essential problem here is that the unions pursue the interests of their membership. Well, of course, you say – what else would they do? The members pay their union dues precisely so that the unions promote their interests.
But we are in a period where their immediate interests conflict with their longer term objectives, which must be to keep employment policies prominent in the public domain. The unions are playing into the hands of Government and the City by appearing to defend a sectional privilege rather than mounting a sustained challenge to financial stagnation.
The TUC needs to do more than pass resolutions. Its interventions should be as authoritative in their own way as those of the Bank of England, and its policy proposals should be setting the agenda in Whitehall.
Union leaders need to be more savvy about public opinion and the need to make industrial action comprehensible to the people who will suffer from it. Because, of course, it is not the bankers who will be damaged by public sector strikes – they send their children to private schools and have private medical insurance.
There is nothing David Cameron, would like more than to see the public inconvenienced and angered by unions that don’t represent them. Successful industrial action, as with political action, stands or falls on its moral force – its ability to mobilise a people across society and not merely those who benefit."
I'm not sure I buy Iain's claim that David Cameron and the coalition government would like major strikes to go ahead - why would anyone want that to happen?
But on the key point MacWhirter is right - the trade unions are pursuing a purely sectional interest.
In fighting to retain 'final salary' pension schemes - the trade unions are effectively campaigning in support of the better off - and discriminating against the low paid - whether union members of not.
The other problem for the unions is that they are so one-dimensional - completely dominated at senior level by people who are resolutely and tribally pro-Labour - which means they can't build a broad cross-party coalition of support - especially in Scotland.
Because instead of telling it straight - warts and all - they're behaving like the industrial wing of the Labour party.
Here's part of what Iain had to say - on the ongoing public sector pensions dispute:
"But the unions seem unable at the moment to provide intellectual or moral leadership. Yesterday they announced they will be launching a winter of discontent, a rolling general strike, not over the failures of economic policy, but over relatively obscure changes to their pension arrangements. There may be an argument that public sector pensions are justified, but it is hard to make when the vast majority of workers don’t have them.
The row is about the Government’s insistence that, because of an ageing population and declining tax revenues, the six million public sector workers need to increase their pension payments and work longer before retirement. Given that final salary pensions, or indeed any kind of defined benefit pensions scarcely exist outside the public sector, this industrial action will, I fear, be met by indifference or even outright hostility from the vast majority of workers who have no such pension rights.
The essential problem here is that the unions pursue the interests of their membership. Well, of course, you say – what else would they do? The members pay their union dues precisely so that the unions promote their interests.
But we are in a period where their immediate interests conflict with their longer term objectives, which must be to keep employment policies prominent in the public domain. The unions are playing into the hands of Government and the City by appearing to defend a sectional privilege rather than mounting a sustained challenge to financial stagnation.
The TUC needs to do more than pass resolutions. Its interventions should be as authoritative in their own way as those of the Bank of England, and its policy proposals should be setting the agenda in Whitehall.
Union leaders need to be more savvy about public opinion and the need to make industrial action comprehensible to the people who will suffer from it. Because, of course, it is not the bankers who will be damaged by public sector strikes – they send their children to private schools and have private medical insurance.
There is nothing David Cameron, would like more than to see the public inconvenienced and angered by unions that don’t represent them. Successful industrial action, as with political action, stands or falls on its moral force – its ability to mobilise a people across society and not merely those who benefit."
I'm not sure I buy Iain's claim that David Cameron and the coalition government would like major strikes to go ahead - why would anyone want that to happen?
But on the key point MacWhirter is right - the trade unions are pursuing a purely sectional interest.
In fighting to retain 'final salary' pension schemes - the trade unions are effectively campaigning in support of the better off - and discriminating against the low paid - whether union members of not.
The other problem for the unions is that they are so one-dimensional - completely dominated at senior level by people who are resolutely and tribally pro-Labour - which means they can't build a broad cross-party coalition of support - especially in Scotland.
Because instead of telling it straight - warts and all - they're behaving like the industrial wing of the Labour party.
