As part of a package of an attack on individual and collective employment rights, the right wing bosses organisation the Institute of Directors (IoD) has launched an attack on collective bargaining in the education and health services: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12378565
The IoD has spotted that the rapid decline in collective bargaining coverage over the past 30 years is now a strategic weakness of British union movement. The proportion of workers whose pay and conditions are covered by collective bargaining had fallen from 70% in 1984 to 33% in 2009. Yet this figure is down to 18% in the private sector. A decline in private sector union membership has occurred in parallel to the decline in collective bargaining – now under 15% of all private sector workers are in a union.
Only in the public sector and the privatised utilities has collective bargaining coverage remained applicable to a majority of the workforce. Hence the IoD - looking to apply the private sector norms to all areas of economic activity – is now moving in for the kill.
Unions must resist tooth and nail this attack on national collective bargaining rights. At the same time it must be recognised that an over reliance on public sector unionism is in itself a threat to the effective continued existence of trade unions in the country. Growth areas of the economy such as private services, the hotel, leisure and retail industries are ripe for union organisation.
