Pete Whitelegg

It will hardly come as a surprise to anyone who has followed politics over the past few years that Parliament plays an almost secondary role in determining the political agenda, at least in terms of domestic politics. Although Labour won an unprecedented number of seats at the last election, that agenda has been determined by external actors.  Starmer and Badenoch may do battle over the dispatch box, but their target is elsewhere in Parliament, a party with only a handful of parliamentary seats to its name. 

Within this maelstrom of dysfunctional politics elements of the left have attempted to form a new political party. Within a short space of time, they appeared to have gathered a considerable number of supporters, 800,000 by all accounts. A founding conference was announced to which delegates would be able to set the policies and direction of the party. But, with almost inevitable speed the whole thing began to fall apart. It may yet materialise. 

The left in general, and particularly within the labour party, are dominated by the symbols of inequality, the rights agenda and identity politics, but these are symptoms of a much greater inequality. The analysis of the left is generally based upon highlighting these instances rather than proposing solutions to the underlying engine of those inequalities. The political left emerges largely as a voyeur rather than an active participant proposing solutions. It lacks a deep and radical critique of the existing order.

If the left no longer appears to be in a position to advance solutions to an ever longer list of problems, the Labour Party itself exhibits an almost pathological determination to make life worse for most people. All this begs the question, is there any possibility of a movement willing and able to perform this task. I think so, the unions.

Over the last three years the unions have not simply undertaken industrial action to improve pay and conditions but have sought to defend public services as public services and not profit centres. The national rail strikes in 2022, and the strikes by doctors and health workers, reached beyond the narrow confines of the workplace and garnered support from a much wider section of the public.

At the centre of this change has been the campaign around the Employment Rights Bill. This bill was originally to be a comprehensive reordering of the relationship between labour and capital.  That is what was promised when Labour was in opposition. Once in office the government wasted no time in watering down the provisions of the bill. Instead, the bill centres on extending individual rights and echoes the Blairite agenda of viewing trade unions as providers of services to their members. Nowhere in the bill is there any commitment to the extension collective bargaining, sectorial or otherwise. In fact, the bill states explicitly that no part of the bill can be taken as an endorsement of collective bargaining. 

What has been important within this context is the reaction of the trade union movement to this situation. Instead of accepting that the contents of the bill are a move forward, providing union members and workers in general, with enhanced rights which is what largely happened in the Blair government, the unions, including the TUC are pushing the issue and proposing new legislation.

The unions, together with the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom and the Institute for Employment Rights, are in the process of writing a new bill putting collective bargaining at the centre of the campaign. This, together with a demand for the repeal of the anti-trade union acts of the 1990s appears to be galvanising the unions to act beyond the confines of the workplace.

 This will extend the role of the unions far beyond the confines of the public sector which, currently, is their stronghold. With collective bargaining extending into the largely ununionized private sector, employees will be able to exercise far greater influence over their employers and their policies. 

The unions have recognised that to achieve these demands they will have to step outside the normal confines of their relationship with the Labour party. For some trade unions this relationship is irrevocably broken. For others it is a severely strained relationship, to the point of breaking. The trade unions in one respect will continue to rely on the Labour Party, because for these changes to come about legislation needs to be passed. But it is becoming increasingly apparent that the relationship between the trade unions and the Labour Party is changing.