Why the government are keen to use trade unions as a scapegoat

“Mike Bassett did a better job as bloody England manager than David Cameron has as Prime Minister” Ricky Tomlinson tells me as he pauses for photos with union members at UNISON’s annual conference in Liverpool. Ricky’s just delivered a powerful opening speech to 2,000 UNISON members packed into the Echo Arena. Just like the final scene of his film Mike Bassett: England Manager, Ricky leaves the stage with his clenched fists pumping the air as thunderous applause fills the room.

Ricky told UNISON members the story of the Shrewsbury 24 and how back in 1972, when Ricky worked as a plasterer, he and his friend Des Warren helped organise a national building workers strike, picketing construction sites in Shrewsbury, campaigning for the simple demands of decent pay and better health and safety because, as Ricky tells us, in 1972 and ’73 “every day someone died in the building industry.”

However, for their part in the campaign, Ricky, his friend Dezzie and four others spent time in prison as a result of a miscarriage of justice bought about on the back of what the Financial Times dismissed as a “flawed” dossier from the National Federation of Building Trades Employers that “reads more like a politically motivated pamphlet than a serious study”. The 21 charges Ricky faced had little support even at the highest levels, with a letter from the then Attorney General to the Home Secretary saying there were no charges for the pickets to answer – especially as at the time they were accompanied by 80 police officers.

Ricky is just as scathing about the attacks on trade unions and their members that continue today. The House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee report into continued blacklisting of building workers for trade union activity; the moves by Eric Pickles and others to stop union activists from representing their members and undertaking union business through trade union facility time; attempts by Conservative MP Dominic Rabb and other Tories to restrict workers rights by scrapping the right to strike in certain workplaces. “If you don’t stand up for it now, it’ll be our children and grandchildren who’ll suffer” says Ricky as he urges people to sign the petition calling for the release of Government documents relating to the breaches of Shrewsbury 24’s rights 40 years ago, stressing that the battle to defend workers rights continues.

In recent weeks the Government has fallen back on attacking trade unions to distract attention away from revelations in the media that a handful of parliamentarians were willing to ask questions and raise issues in both Houses of Parliament in return for payment. The Coalition pledged to introduce a statutory register of lobbyists for what was a scandal about corrupt MPs/Peers, but in a cynical attempt to causes problems for the passage of legislation they’ve previously been reluctant to introduce, Downing Street also announced that it planned to use the bill to make changes to rules on trade union activities in political campaigning.

Trade unions are already some of the most heavily regulated membership bodies in the country. Every trade union that maintains a political fund has to have that fund approved in a ballot of all its members and any political activity can only come out of that fund. Every individual trade unionist is entitled to opt-out of this if they wish, whilst UNISON offers the alternative choice to our members in the form of either an opt-in to support general political campaigning or an opt-in to activity linked to the Labour Party. Using the lobbying bill to try and clampdown on trade unions is just blatant opportunism to further undermine the role of trade unions.

It’s not entirely clear how the Coalition thinks changes to rules on union membership self-certification and so-called “third-party expenditure” will address those greedy MPs and Peers who want to take cash for questions – or the lobbyists who may offer such gifts in return for their help. However, what is clear is that this Government is as keen to use trade unions as a scapegoat as the Government of Ted Heath was when striking union members like Ricky Tomlinson and Des Warren were wrongly convicted on trumped up charges in 1972.

This piece forms part of our coverage of Unison conference, which is taking place in Liverpool this week