How David Cameron plans to tame the unions

24 October 2009

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics.

Then, the finance. At present, Labour has a device that siphons taxpayers’ money into the unions (which, in turn, donate money to Labour). It is, officially, a ‘modernisation fund’ to advance the cause of industrial relations and worth about £10 million of taxpayers’ money. Just last month, Francis Maude summed it up neatly: ‘Union barons fund the Labour party by ripping off union members. In turn, Labour ministers fund the union barons by ripping off taxpayers.’ The obvious thing to do is for the Tories to abolish it.

But I am told that plans are being formed to keep the fund. Mr Cameron’s personal envoy to the unions, a personable former Labour MEP named Richard Balfe, has quietly reassured several union leaders that the fund will survive for at least two years. This serves two purposes. First, it is an olive branch to the unions, a sign that the Tories do not want to declare war on them. Second, it hands Mr Cameron a bargaining chip. Brown’s slush fund can become a Tory good-behaviour bond. If the unions are not interested in a constructive relationship with the government, then the fund goes.

There are other ways of endearing the Conservatives to the unions. The ‘trust the professionals’ mantra in health — together with a proposed NHS Independence Act — is seen as a policy the unions should welcome. Indeed, the Cameroon decentralisation agenda can be spun as a means of trusting professionals more, ending the culture of form-filling that has grown under Labour and offering workers more control to increase their job satisfaction. It is hoped, perhaps naively, that greater freedom from bureau-cracy will help alleviate the anger caused by restrictions on pay.

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Tom Burkard

October 22nd, 2009 5:19pm Report this comment

In education, unions have an Achilles heel which can be exploited profitably. On key issues, most union bosses automatically identify with the nomenklatura that infest the DCSF, school quangos, and education colleges; the people that Chris Woodhead refers to as "the lump". However, most teachers resent the controls that these people have imposed upon them. Whenever I conduct training seminars for teachers, I invariably tell them that it's obvious that the people who have dreamed up all these wonderful initiatives have never served in the trenches, so to speak. No one ever dares comment, but you can tell that they are grateful that someone understands.

Michael Gove will not, of course, needlessly antagonise the teaching unions. But when the chips are down, they are a hollow threat. He could further weaken them by indemnifying ever serving teacher against legal action taken by a member of the public, or (even better) by matching the main benefit that unions now offer teachers: free legal representation for all job-related issues.

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