In the early 19th century the Chartists fought against those who argued the vote should be denied to working men because to do so would ‘cede power to an ignorant, insensate and unworthy majority’.
Almost a century later the Suffragettes confronted the prejudice that men and women had 'separate spheres’ and that women 'do not fight in wars so have not earned the vote’.
Similarly specious arguments are now being deployed to deny trade union rights to public sector workers. This weekend the Financial Times sullied its reputation by publishing an article by Christopher Caldwell supporting the denial of collective bargaining rights to public sector workers in the US state of Wisconsin:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/26ad0d1e-411a-11e0-bf62-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1F5hoy8nz
Public-sector unions have long posed a problem of what the economist Mancur Olson called the “logic of collective action”. Democracy tends to offer benefits to small, well-organised groups (who defend them vigilantly) while spreading the costs among the broader public (in doses that are too small to rally resistance around). The result is a hardening of privilege’
‘If trade unions did not exist now, would we feel a need to invent them? Styles of labour organisation change and end. Guilds, indenture, phalansteries, kibbutzes, apprenticeships – all of them, in their day, had success in either enriching proprietors or ennobling workers. None is particularly fit for contemporary purpose, even if they survive here and there. Since governments do not go broke the way businesses do, public-sector collective bargaining does not produce equilibrium the way private-sector negotiations do. The only equilibrium is a political equilibrium. The only brake on escalating demands is an emergency brake. It appears Americans are about to pull it.’
This debate will not be confined to the US. Indeed the Australian unions narrowly fought off similar attacks by the right wing Howard Government less than 5 years ago.
The Conservative Party and its media allies are already waging a low intensity war on public sector unions in Britain. Media propaganda about Cabinet Office ‘War Games’, character assassination of individual union leaders, contrived exposés about union political links, phantom strikes on Royal Wedding Day or even today’s hysteria about new union buildings are all designed to soften up public opinion for the more substantial and existential attacks to come.
De-recognition and undermining of the right to strike may be playing out in the US today, but, as sure as night follows day, unions in Britain need to prepare for and pre-empt the no less ferocious attacks which will take place here during the term of office of the current government.
In doing so, lessons can be learned from the single focus and unity of the nationally co-ordinated union campaigns in Australia and the US. When we're all under attack there's little point in sectional campaigns by individual unions or go it alone gesture politics by small groups of unions.
