Influence and Role of Trade Unions - Essay Example

Introduction The formation of trade unions is a great progress of our civilization. It is well known that there were not any trade unions neitherin the epoch of slavery or in the epoch of feudalism. They became a very important public means of regulation of social relationship, and marked the progress of mankind. During last decades trade unions have been confronted with a lot of serious problems, which have led to substantial decline of their influence and importance. For centuries trade unions struggled for good conditions for employees. In contemporary world employees are in competition with each other in order to get a better job. Many organizations long ago realized that it is more efficient to hire purposeful, responsible, and interested in their job people. Accordingly people, who get a job today, automatically receive all those privileges labour unions for had struggled for. As a matter of fact trade unions cannot find their place in the new system of labour relationship. In the course of time fundamental economic changes had happened in the country. The traditional heavy industry, a stronghold of trade unions, gradually becomes the thing of the past. According to Turner, "if unions can not hold their own and adapt to changing circumstances in the core industrial work force, the traditional bastion of labour strength, it is difficult to imagine that national prospects for unions elsewhere can be promising1". Labour unions also have not been taken in the extremely developing industry of high technologies, and have not been widely accepted in the services sphere. So we can agree with the statement of Robert Baldwin, who claims that one of the factors that contribute to weakling of trade unions is "unskilled labour-displacing nature of new technology, including outsourcing2". Notwithstanding it is wrong to say, that trade unions are doomed. One can hardly find an example of a democratic society, which does not have trade unions in its structure. British trade unions now are trying to take their own place in the new national economy. The role of state in labour market The role of the state in regulation of relations on a labour market increased in the post-war history of the Great Britain. Leading political forces send to the consent that the chronic unemployment in the country in 1930th years, intensity between the labour and the capital, and the general social instability should be eliminated by means of mixed economy and the Welfare state. As a result of such turn in consciousness of British establishment the labour governments and later conservative governments began to pursue a policy of Keynesianism and social-democratic etatism. There has come a new phase in relations between authority and working-class movement when the last one has been recognized, on a par with business, the necessary participant of formation of social and economic policy of the British state. Influence and role of trade unions Trade unions have turned to one of the most active public organizations rendering great influence on actions of parties in power. Having got such legitimacy in regulation of relations on a labour market, the British working-class movement became an integral part of the post-war device of the state. The ruling class has recognized it as the necessary partner in business of maintenance of social stability. The organized labour has appeared both object, and the subject in mutual relations with the state. As an object it is the inseparable part of a society necessary for the sanction of conflicts arising in it. As a subject it is the defender of interests of working class, which quite often conflicted to aspirations of capitalism. In 1950-1960 years, when the country experienced the economic boom, trade unions have played a visible constructive role in processes of regulation of social development, socialization of citizens of the country, adjustment of manufacture-consumption cycle, and the society's control over authority. Implication for the government The important feature of interaction of trade unions with the government was dialectics in relations, which was characterized by generality of interests in the strategic plane and their discrepancy in the tactical plane. The part of the British working-class movement criticised the capitalist way of manufacture, but as a whole was an integrated part of capitalist system, instead of its destroyer. The authority and working-class movement in the Great Britain cooperated in several directions. It has been adjusted cooperation between trade unions, business, and the state in a format of tripartite negotiations, the involvement of trade unions into a policy and macroeconomic management was used. On various forms of interaction between the state and trade unions defining influence was rendered with such key principles of labour relations, as "voluntarism" and "legalism". In the first case the state did not interfere directly in relations between business and hired workers, who on the basis of the principle of voluntarism agreed among themselves, in the second case the emphasis was done on legal fastening of the rights and duties of the parties. Voluntarism is a characteristic feature of labour relations in Britain, though last twenty years the state more and more often resorted to the help of the legislation for a regulation of relations between the labour and the capital. Besides the British trade unions, which always painfully reacted to attempts to weaken the principle of voluntarism in relations with employers, actually supposed the latent state regulation. In 1964-1979 within the labour governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan informal tripartism was usual practice in the form of "incomes policy" and "social contract"3. However, trade unions always uncompromisingly protected own interests from direct intervention of the state. Their rough protests in reply to the initiative of the government of Wilson "In Place of Strife" in 1969, depriving them of some privileges, and also a head-on collision with Edward Heath's government in the beginning of 1970's years after the acceptance of the antitrade-union Industrial Relations Act, are great evidence to it. Other distinctive feature of working-class movement in Britain is associative membership of the majority of trade unions in the Labour party of the Great Britain. Such state of affairs is direct consequence of that this party has been created in 1900 under the decision of the British congress of trade unions. Since then both parties used this "marriage of convenience" in own interests: trade unions possessed an informal vote in definition of policy of labourites in opposition and at authority, and the management of the party used support of trade unions for carrying out of unpopular economic reforms instead of granting access to management of the country. The latent participation of the British state in regulation of labour relations essentially influenced realization of the concept of voluntarism. Since 1979 Conservatives, and since 1997 also Labourites, surrounded labour relations with legislation. As a result we have gradual deleting border between traditional spheres of the responsibility of the state and trade unions - policy and economy. The state more and more actively approved itself as the Supreme arbitrator in relations between the labour and the capital. Changes in the situation In 1970-1980 years the situation has essentially changed. After world energy crisis and falling of efficiency of economy of demand the relations between the state and working-class movement have rebalanced and have considerably worsened. The given processes have been caused by a neo-Conservative ideological fever not in smaller degree, than objective necessity of re-structuring of economy for conditions of formation of a post-industrial society. At the same time these changes have not led to radical easing of the role of the state on the labour market. Thatcherism Let us consider the phenomenon of Thatcherism. Basic distinction between such countries as France and Germany, and Britain consist in the fact that the government of last one within the period of Margaret Thatcher treated trade unions as a threat, while continental neighbours tried to provide comprehensible conditions for adaptation of the markets of labour to new conditions. Certainly, in these countries trade unions could not also brag of "hothouse" conditions for workers, but there was no frontal attack against working-class movement on the British sample4. Thatcherism included two in many respects mutually exclusive each other spheres of ideas and theories: these are elements of neo-liberal ideology (such concepts as "personal interests", "monetarism", "competition") and elements of conservative ideology ("nation", "family", "duty", "authority", "traditions"). Thatcherism was based on connection of policy of the free market and the strong state. Around of the term "collectivism", which did not keep within frameworks of this project, ideologists of Thatcherism has built quite a number of associations, which has led to occurrence of social aversion to this concept. Collectivism in mass consciousness began to associate with socialism, stagnation, non-effective governing, and the power of not the states, but trade unions to the detriment of state interests. As a result of such policy has became the introduction of ideas, that the social institutes built in accordance with ideology of "collectivism", bear the responsibility for the crisis state of economy and protracted stagnation in society. Thatcherism began to be associated with individual freedoms and own business, moral and political rejuvenation of British society, restoration of the law and the order. Trade Unions since 1997: need for new legislation In that hardest situation, in which the British trade unions have appeared by 1997, intrusion of the state (at condition that Labourites had the power) on territory of their traditional domain not seemed so unacceptable any more. When the government is not limited by legally fixed rules of behaviour, its actions can be inconsistent and politically engaged, depending on the one who at present is at 10, Dawning Street. Voluntarism is effective until the parties are ready to play all by unwritten rules. In absence of the written constitution thatcherists have refused these practice dominated in labour relations within decades. Trade unions have found out that in the face of hostilely adjusted authority the traditions of voluntarism are powerless to protect them from legislative attack of Torry. The anti trade-union laws accepted by conservatives, have put the British working-class movement on decades ago. It became clear that in conditions of post-industrial economy and neo-conservatism trade unions are not guaranteed any more against recurrence of similar misfortunes, and it is necessary to turn the legislative weapon to own advantage. For this purpose it was required to improve it up to the level of the European Union, where the labour law is much more progressive than British one. For trade unions has come the time of difficult decisions as this way conducted to decline of the principle of voluntarism. However there was no alternative except in sphere of labour relations to rely on legal norms for protection of own interests. As for this issue the intentions of "new labourites" and trade unions have coincided. Tony Blair's government has joined the Social Charter of the European Union and therefore instructions of EU in the field of the social law and labour relations began to act in Britain. Legislatively has been issued introduction in the country of the minimal payment and a compulsory procedure of recognition of trade unions by employers. The trade unions as a result of these reforms certainly have won. Works cited: 1. Baldwin, Robert E. The Decline of Us Labor Unions and the Role of Trade: the role of international trade. Peterson Institute, 2003. 2. Turner, Lowell. Democracy at Work: changing world markets and the future of labor unions. Cornell University Press, 1991. 3. The Challenges to Trade Unions in Europe. Ed. by Peter Leisink, Jim Van Leemput and Jacques Vilrokx. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, Britain, 1996. 4. The Labour Party. A Centenary History. Ed. by Brian Brivati and Richard Hefferman. Macmillan Press, London, 2000. Read More