Hypocrisy and ridiculous consequences: The Tory plan to impose turnout thresholds on trade union ballots

[ttosca]

avid Cameron has stated that he is considering plans to plough ahead with Boris Johnson's ridiculously hypocritical idea of banning strikes unless 50% of trade union members participate in the strike ballot.

Boris Johnson's hypocrisy

It's not difficult to demonstrate exactly how hypocritical this kind of turnout requirement would be. We only need to look at the 38% turnout in the 2012 London mayoral election which saw Boris Johnson re-elected as mayor of London*, to see that Tories like Boris Johnson have absolutely no objection to sub-50% turnouts when the results suit them. The fact that Boris Johnson even accepted the job as mayor of London after such a poor turnout clearly demonstrates that he's only bothered turnout thresholds if he can cynically use them as a way of disempowering his political opponents.

More Tory hypocrisy

There are countless other political examples of low turnouts, in which Tory politicians have happily taken up their positions without a hint of concern over sub-50% turnouts.
PCC elections

The most shocking example of ridiculously low turnouts in UK politics has to be the farcical 2012 PCC election, which featured the lowest turnouts in British electoral history. Not a single region managed better than a 20% turnout, and several PCCs were elected with first preference backing from less than 5% of the eligible electorate. Four of the eight PCCs who accepted their jobs despite being backed by less than 5% of the electorate were Tories (Nick Alston, Essex 3.91%, Graham Bright, Cambridgeshire 3.96%, Matthew Grove, Humberside 4.21%, Richard Rhodes, Cumbria 4.54%).

It would be an absolute travesty for the Tories to impose an arbitrary 50% turnout threshold on trade union ballots, yet allow a load of their fellow Tories to sit in highly paid taxpayer funded jobs after fewer than 5% of people even bothered to vote for them.

Local elections

Since the 1980s the average turnout at local elections has rarely scraped above 45%, and in the last set of local elections in 2013 the turnout was just 31%. These appallingly low turnouts mean that if a 50% turnout threshold were applied to local elections, the vast majority of local councilors would find themselves out of their jobs, including several thousand Tory councilors.

If the Tories are happy to have thousands of Tory councilors across the country elected on less than 50% turnouts, it would be a display of grotesque hypocrisy were they to apply 50% turnout thresholds to trade union ballots.

Cont'd...

anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/tory-trade-union-turnout-boris.html

[ttosca]

Strike Laws: Unions Agree With Boris That They Should Be Changed

==========

Britain's union leaders agree with Boris Johnson that strike laws need to change - but not in quite the same way.

The RMT union, which was behind last week's tube strikes that caused travel chaos in London, told HuffPost UK it wanted the current laws on balloting to be repealed, claiming they "shackle the working class".

Other unions said the "complex and restrictive" laws needed to be changed, calling for electronic voting to be allowed.

And an employment lawyer said Britain was already failing to comply with international requirements to protect the right to strike.

After the two-day strike last week, and with a second one looming, Johnson has called for the rules to be tightened with new minimum laws for turnouts.

Other Tories seem to agree, and tough new measures are expected in their next election manifesto.

Speaking on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday morning, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles agreed there was "merit" in the suggestions, but said it would not be passed by the current House of Commons.

But Richard Arthur, head of trade union law for Thompsons Solicitors, said Britain was already failing to comply with international requirements to protect strikers.

"Numerous international legal instruments to which the United Kingdom is a signatory provide expressly, or by implication, for the protection of the right to strike to a higher standard than is the case in the UK," he said.

Countries like France and Spain have the right to strike enshrined in their constitutions.

Arthur also warned of a "pressure cooker effect":

"If workers aren't able to take industrial action, their sense of outrage just boils up," he said.

Asked what changes it would make to the current laws, an RMT Union spokesman said :"Britain already has a raft of anti-union laws brought in by the Thatcher Government designed to shackle the working class. We want those laws repealed."

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said she would introduce electronic balloting, which would increase turnout in ballots.

"There is no case for raising the threshold required to get a yes vote in a strike ballot, a simple majority should suffice", she added.

Richard Simcox, of the PCS union, said calling a strike was already "incredibly bureaucratic, time-consuming and expensive", and joined calls for electronic voting.

"We're the ones that are called dinosaurs on this, but actually we have got forward-thinking ideas," he added.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/02/07/strike-laws_n_4745572.html

[caroldecker]

My point is that a strike ballot is for a move from the status quo to a strike postion, whilst an elstion, whether for mayor or government is a 'end of the road' start again.
the 2 positions are different and dfifferent rules are valid.
It is perfectly justified to demand a 50 % vote to change the status quo, whilst demanding a lower % for a replacement of a fixed term position.

[Isitmebut]

ttosca .... nice speech on how trade unions/employees 'know how to run the business' better than the shareholders who put their pensions in a company and mandate directors to run it for them.

Who are the shareholders of the London Tube and which union half-wit can justify CLOSING DOWN LONDON and inconveniencing millions of citizens who may lose their days pay - based on the trade unions illustrious history of 'advising' UK industry that was decimated from their actions in the 1970's??????????

Isn't it funny that the Japanese and German workers that advise on worker-director boards either have NEVER gone on strike, or hardly do?

THIS is the militant trade union example of running a business I remember, since having departing manufacturing and headed for public sector, where it's harder to run a country into the ground than it is a business.



news.bbc.co.uk/local/liverpool/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8401000/8401200.stm

“British Leyland's Speke factory symbolised all that was wrong with UK car manufacturing in the dark days of the 1970s, a million miles away from the high performing plants of today at Ellesmere Port and Halewood.”

“In 1978 British Leyland's Speke Number Two plant was under threat of closure, afflicted by a series of crippling strikes, low sales of the TR7 it manufactured, and a history of poor industrial relations coupled with inefficiencies.”

“In 1970 British Leyland, who had taken over Triumph, spent £10.5 million building Speke Number Two plant, it was one of the most modern and best equipped plants in Europe designed to build 100,000 vehicles a year all under one roof.”


“When BBC Nationwide visited in February 1978 the plant only had a few months of life left.”

[thegambler]

Which worker-director boards are you comparing with ? Surely not Lufthansa who were cancelling flights over gasp, shock, industrial action recently. As was the German Amazon outlet.

Jeez using the 70's to tar todays unions is a bit daft.

[Isitmebut]

The UK £1.3 trillion currently in national debt, can not afford to pee around being soft on militant trade unions; not the ones of the "1950's" you mentioned, but in the 1970's, when manufacturing fell from around 29% of our economy in 1970, to 23% by the 1979 general election.


When Labour & UK Trade Unions last ‘shared’ power and didn’t have the same priorities = Thatcher.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent

“The Winter of Discontent refers to the winter of 1978–79 in the United Kingdom, during which there were widespread strikes by public sector trade unions demanding larger pay rises, following the ongoing pay caps of the Labour Party government led by James Callaghan against Trades Union Congress opposition to control inflation, during the coldest winter for 16 years.”

“The strikes were a result of the Labour government's attempt to control inflation by a forced departure from their social contract with the unions by imposing rules on the public sector that pay rises be kept below 5%, to control inflation in itself and as an example to the private sector.”


As the public sector trade unions appears to think they manage services and only their pay and pensions are not keeping up with inflation, when so many private sector taxpayers either lost their jobs or DO NOT HAVE private pensions linked to final salary (since the Brown raid in 1997) - IT IS TIME to tighten the strike rules for the good of the many.

The public sector employees increased by over 1 million from 1997 to 2010 and the public sector guaranteed pension liability of £1.3 trillion (separate from the 1.3 trillion of national debt) has only around £300 bil provisioned for, meaning the £1 trillion comes out of annual budgets when fall due.

Few would argue the public sector don't deserve their pensions, especially the front line workers, but they have to remember those funding them have suffered through the Great Recession and nationally our grandchildren's children will still be paying off the debt, so if tighter measures to stop ideological strikes are needed, so be it. IMO.

[thegambler]

At the same time the trade unions can't allow their members to be shat upon, especially now when we are bragged at that the economy is growing yet wages at the bottom aren't keeping pace. The trickle down effect doesn't work, didn't under thatcher (lower tense meant), hasn't elsewhere, won't here.

[Isitmebut]

Thegambler .... really, no comparison, justify the Tube Strike to me in principle and the effect/cost on nation output of each day they were on strike and why London workers should have to either have days off, pay more to get to work by taxi or walk to work in winter weather.

Re Germany and Japan record of strikes versus the UK over the past 10, 20, or 45 years, do you really want to tell me there is any comparison????????????

[thegambler]

Why don'ty you talk about strikes etc, labour relations from 97 ?. You seem to be very cherrypicky. Like a leftwinger saying thatcher done this, Heath that, Major this etc.

[thegambler]

Justify the Tube strike, easy, people want staff at those places and I think, not entirely sure here, that the reason they were allowed to strike was because of the way the Authority went about it. Strange that on the news when inyterviewed most people inconvenienced by the strike sympathised with it.

Your view if things is weird, trying to associate the Labour party of the 70's with todays, like me associating Heath with Cameron. They have nothing in coming, the field has changed so much, Blair is to the right of Heath and as much a centerist as Major. But all you can see is the labels. You seemingly support you party blindly like I support my football tyeam.

[Isitmebut]

the gambler .... show me one frigging recession since year dot that jobs increased and wages didn't suffer ... THAT IS THE DEFINITION OF A RECESSION ... are you confused with a Brown 'boom'?

Show me one stupid militant strike, wildcat or otherwise, that WASN'T under the pretense 'their members were being shat on' - right up to the moment the company went tits up - and then it was Thatcher's fault. Idiots.

The economy LOST 7% of output in 2008 under Labour thanks to an unbalance economy relying on the proceeds of a City profits and bank balance sheet growth that we are JUST about to get back, made worse by record government and consumer debt - it will take years more to recover, and GDP figures ''boasted about" just show we are going in the right direct, along with the 1,5 million new jobs since 2010, 1 million full time.

Lower taxes help the 'trickle down', not in Labour's vocab, but even as we start to feel a bit better off, there will still be £1,500,000,000,000 (£1.5 trillion) of national debt that has to be paid of by higher national output, more taxes or both - a drain on everyone.

Labour in 2010 had no idea how to increase national output (GDP) other than by increased spending/debt and were waiting for after 2010 to tell us about their new tax rises - to help 'the cost of living crisis'.

[thegambler]

When did I mention anything about the recession ? I know where I worked we threatened strike action as the company cried "RECESSION" despite making record profits and tried to fob us off with a pay cut. We got our pay rise and the companies profits went uop again...............good for all!

The economy in 2008 lost it under Labour, true. It wouldn't have happened under the Conservatives would it ?, They would have stopped the world wide crash ?. The structural deficit would have been a little smaller but the slash and burn reaction would have stalled the recovery as it did leading to what we've had.

[Isitmebut]

thegambler ..... re the Tube Strike and 'the way the company went about it', in other words they didn't get "around a table", shorthand for 'giving us everything we want'.

The strike was about the union saying the ticket offices shouldn't be closed. the company saying they should, and the union thinking they'd have public support. Re support, ask the ones their view stuck at home, or so peed off they'd hit a reporter if asked.

And p-l-e-a-s-e do NOT get me started on a Labour Party 90% funded by Trade Unions, a shadow cabinet of which 80% receive funds directly to their offices from trade unions (including Miliband) and the majority of Mps affiliated - and Miliband's move to take the party back to 'the heavy hand of State' controls favoured by the likes of McClusky(?), who has threatened to pull funds from Labour if they lose the next general election.

The signs are there, especially to those who lived through to despair of the 1970's and a militant trade union movement more allied to the old Soviet Union Kremlin, than Westminster - and if you want details of that, just ask me.

[thegambler]

Don't get me started on where Tory party funds come from.

I am a trade unionist in one of the supposedly more militant trade unions and we make deal after deal on cost neutrality. We have to be business savvy now, the 70's are long gone and you are a dinosaur.

[Isitmebut]

Thegambler .... Brown formed the financial regulatory tripartite in 1997 that failed so badly; Brown and his FSA has long since apologized, please keep up.

Our bank had to be part nationalised ' as they would run out of cash the next day', how many other countries had to do that in 2007/8?

As for the Conservatives, they were paying down debt from the 1990's recession and balanced the annual budget - but this spending 'stimulus' by Brown on a fat, inefficient Quango State mentioned below - was what the Conservatives had to trim.

GDP 'growf' Balls style continuing throwing good money after bad, wasn't a sensible option when we had an annual budget deficit of £157 billion in 2010, that was balanced by Tory policies by the late 1990's.



So lets keep this simple and I’ve tried to find a source that is fair( overly in my view) and try wasting your breath defending Labour by challenging the following link – with graphs and charts.
www.economicshelp.org/blog/5509/economics/government-spending-under-labour/

“During the years 2001-2007, there was a sharp rise in government spending. In real terms, government spending increased from just over £400bn (2009 prices) to £618bn in 2008-09.

"As a % of GDP Government spending also increased from 36% of GDP in 2000 to 46% of GDP by the end of 2008-09"

"This increase in government spending contributed to budget deficits and higher public sector debt."

"After a short period of budget surplus (due to spending restraint) in the late 1990s, the UK experienced a budget deficit of 2-3% of GDP between 2002-2007."

"By historical standards, this is relatively low. It still met the Maastricht criteria of keeping budget deficits to less than 3% of GDP."

"However, the budget situation was also improved by impressive tax revenues from the housing and financial boom. When the credit crunch hit, tax revenues rapidly dwindled causing a marked deterioration in public finances.”

• If the government had entered the credit crunch with a budget surplus and lower public sector debt, the government would have had much more room to pursue a real and sustained economic stimulus.

However, because there was already a deficit, the recession caused a rise in the cyclical deficit. The deficit of 2009-10 of 11% of GDP was primarily due to the deterioration in public finances, only a small part of this deficit was due to expansionary fiscal policy (VAT cut)

• A great failure of spending decisions of the 2000s, was to allow budget deficits during rapid economic expansion. A budget deficit of 3% of GDP may have sounded relatively low. But, in hindsight, this exaggerated the underlying deficit because tax revenues were boosted by tax revenues which evaporated during the credit crunch.

In other words, we had an economy built on excessive government spending sand, financed by speculation and debt.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1214001/The-cost-quango-Britain-hits-170bn--seven-fold-rise-Labour-came-power.html

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/million-factory-jobs-lost-under-labour-6150418.html

[Isitmebut]

Thegambler .... I can give you the list of early Blair Labour Party City companies like those in Private Equity (who'd directors 'paid more tax than their tea ladies') and those paying cash for Lords investigated by the police that also had government contracts ... which explains why Brown lowered Capital Gains Tax early on to a tapered low of 10%, raising it to only 18% by the time he left office.

Those 'New' Labour days are gone, so back to 'Old' Labour trade union paymasters - and influenced by their policies/agendas.

[thegambler]

yet in 2007 the tories would match labours spending plans! Hindsight is a wonderful if spiteful thing.

[Isitmebut]

I'm not being spiteful, the facts of their administration shows Labour were economically and socially incompetent and wasted the best decade for nearly a century to change our lives for the better e.g. build a few million homes with the money.

As to bringing up what the Tories would do, in 2007 the crash didn't even begin until September/October when the government let Northern Rock fail before they got their shit together and added liquidity into the financial markets like the U.S. Federal Reserve and European ECB.

ONCE the crash started, Brown who was convinced he'd 'cured boom and bust' kept on throwing money at the Public Sector thinking we'd emerge quickly, instead of helping the Private Sector that paid for the former - so as our tax revenues crashed, our expenses were still rising up until 2010, when Darling was budgeting for a £167 bil plus deficit when they were re-elected.

Labour's post 2010 plan was 'more of the same' that got our finances in such a mess, calling that 'a stimulus' rather than directing it to PRODUCE balance growth and jobs in the private Sector.

Darling was raising National Insurance post 2010, which he admitted would COST Private sector jobs, what sort of plan was increasing the tax on job creation in the worst honking recession for 80-years????

As I said, incompetent, they don't have a clue unless they can throw money at a problem - hence their 'negative' campaigning and trusted 'class war' to paper over their lack of non State control ideas to BUILD an economy, rather than cover it in red tape and regulations, weakening it further.

[EdithWeston]

Threads can take all sorts of turns.

And 'hypocrisy an ridiculous consequences' is not limited to one party.

Labour plans to after the block vote will probably have a much bigger impact on the union movement than a simple membership majority for valid strikes.

[ttosca]

Threads can take all sorts of turns.

Yes they can, but isitmebut consistently tries to turn every thread in to an opportunity for him to spout Tory scum propaganda - as he is paid to do.

And 'hypocrisy an ridiculous consequences' is not limited to one party.

Of course not.

Labour plans to after the block vote will probably have a much bigger impact on the union movement than a simple membership majority for valid strikes.

I'd be interested to know what you're talking about. Is this a recent labour proposal?

[Isitmebut]

ttosca ….. excuse me, I did go ‘off thread here’ but mainly in answer to thegamblers incorrect statements, popularly accepted thanks to Labour’s (and their apologists) propaganda, that I like to correct and qualify for balance.

Re Trade Union Reform, here all the points I want to make, as although I do not believe with the current state of the UK’s finances would allow the UK to go back to the bad old 1970’s I remember all too well – there is a TREND here, that I would find disturbing WITHOUT trade union reforms – that would not just benefit the country as a whole, but those the trade unions represent.

There is no doubt, as I’ve mentioned earlier, that the Trade Union’s have far more control over the parliamentary Labour Party than they have for decades, especially financially, which is CLEARLY shaping their current policies – as their appointee, Mr Miliband (who initially resisted), now see’s those policies as the path of least residence to shore up their own vote, including the new more leftie Lib Dems – ahead of the 2015 General Election where they only need 35% of the vote for a large majority in parliament.

Furthermore, for a Labour Party far more comfortable attacking the Private Sector than building it up to increase tax receipts and jobs, there seems to be other moves to increase the Trade Union influence over parliament, which is not healthy considering the financially compromised UK’s inward investment needs now more than ever, for the Private Sector’s contribution and points of views to be fully understood by our MP law makers.

This post below, looks at Labour’s current attempts to weaken the Private Sector’s ‘influence’ which may not be a bad idea in general, it comes across as yet another ‘plot’ by a Labour Party currently receiving around 90% of their funding from Trade Unions and a shadow cabinet, where AT LEAST 80% have their offices funded by unions, including Ed Miliband at over 6-figures in total, I understand.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/politics/2045534-Labour-to-ban-external-working-MP-s

As we saw in the late 1970’s with the ‘Winter of Discontent’, an emboldened Trade Union movement and a weakened Labour government can create a crisis this country with close to £1,500,000,000,000 (£1.5 trillion) National Debt by 2015 can NOT afford.

Public Sector trade unions were mainly kept in their box due to the sheer weight of money Labour threw at the unreformed Public Sector over 13-years, which to my mind was why ‘more of the same’ was their 2010 manifesto.

Trade Union reforms built on a 50% vote is the LEAST democratic safeguard(s) the British public should insist on before the next General Election. IMO.

[TheHammaconda]

I thought proposals such as these breached ILO Convention?

I'm surprised, given the commitment to democracy demonstrated with this announcement, that the same turnout threshold won't be applied to referenda on major constitutional reforms like, for example, a referendum on whether to remain within the European Union.

[TheHammaconda]

I thought proposals such as these breached ILO Conventions

[thegambler]

Isitmebut, I don't have to challenhge the economics help link, I'll just let it speak for itself. The entire article is hardly an endorsment of the coalitions policies since 2010, when asking directly "Did Labour’s Spending and Deficits of 2000s Contribute to the Great Recession?" it explains that things could have been better had they shown more restraint but also that the coalitions austerity policies were a key factor in the double dip recession, policies which the author of the article, in fact I'll quote it. "A key factor in the double dip recession, was the government’s pursuit of austerity measures in 2010 and 2011. The coalition claim they had no choice because the previous government had left them with a large deficit. I don’t agree. The coalition could have taken more time to reduce long-term deficit, the pace of austerity was self-defeating and unnecessary"

The author then goes on to say that if the debt had been lower then the coalition may not have persued such an austere policy, I believe they would have as it's idealogical.