Mr Blair described the Government's Fairness at Work reforms as an attempt to give, or restore to, employees rights to fair treatment in the workplace. The White Paper will reinstate safeguards which had been removed by successive Conservative administrations, particularly those led by Margaret Thatcher. She had been motivated largely by the imperative to rein in on union power which had been abused during the Callaghan years. She went too far in restricting the power of unions which had failed to exercise proper restraint.
New Labour could therefore strike a balance. It is neither beholden to the unions nor dismissive of them (the latter something which will not happen as long as they put so much money into party coffers). Mr Blair's Government is closer to business than any other Labour administration. And business has learned that it can live with Labour. These factors are all detectable in the White Paper, which over the piece is balanced. As far as the unions are concerned, the justifiable anger and disappointment caused by the requirement of a 40% employee threshold before the granting of recognition have largely been mitigated by a raft of welcome statutory measures.
These include granting all employees the right to union representation in dispute procedures, better protection against unfair dismissal, parental leave, and extending minimum paid maternity leave. Unions will rightly press to reduce the 40% rule so that it is in keeping with the spirit of New Labour's manifesto commitment to grant recognition based on a simple majority in a workplace ballot, something which, in government, it could not sell to employers. Business has little to fear. Those which treat their employees properly but do not recognise unions, such as Marks & Spencer, will not be pressured by unions which also live in the real world.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article