How David Cameron plans to tame the unions

24 October 2009

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics.

Another area of possible conflict is the Tories’ plans for school liberalisation. The NUT and the NASUWT have both made their opposition to these plans clear, as Michael Gove proposes free schools immune from national pay bargaining. But a strike over a Tory manifesto commitment would be a strategic blunder by the unions. In any such dispute, the Conservatives would easily be able to portray themselves as being on the side of parents and pupils, and the unions as self-interested defenders of a broken system that fails the most vulnerable.

A return to the epic government-union confrontations of the previous decades is unlikely. The unions know it is not 1971 and the smarter organisations are increasingly beginning to grasp that industrial action is best used as part of a public relations strategy — as a way of drawing attention to a cause. The Tories have keenly grasped the PR point too and are determined to avoid macho posturing that could be seen as provocative. But, as one shadow Cabinet member put it to me, if challenged, they will respond with ‘grim determination’. The brothers have been put on notice.

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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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