Across the pond

Astonishingly, Gordon Brown, who is not even very popular with his own party, is now neck to neck in the opinion polls with David Cameron, the Conserative’ s Mr Nice, with his his delightfully pregnant wife. So the unexpected might even happen. We might all wake up on 7 May to discover dear Gordon is still running the shop.

But not if the predominantly right wing British press has its way.

The nasty squad is pouring out its vitriol. Targetting  the workers on the airlines and the railways for daring to strike in protest against what their bosses are doing.

The trade union bosses, we are told, are using their bullying tactics again, to sabotage the Britain which was made Britain great again in 1982 by Margaret Thatcher, with the help of her ally, Rupert Murdoch. Who cut the balls off the union bully boys.

According to the myth.

There’s enough truth in this story to justify the headlines. But it is far from the whole truth.

Fact One. Rupert Murdoch  did not vanquish the union bosses in his moonlight flit to Wapping in 1982. The bosses of the trade union’s for some years before Wapping had been working with Governments and managements to bring about agreed reforms in  work place practices. Which had failed, partly because of the power of the guerilla leaders amongst the trade union movement, most notably the shop stewards of some of the Fleet Street unions, who were successfully negotiating higher and higher salaries for the work done by their members, and using their power to stop newspaper managements, introducing the new technology, which made their skills redundant.

Murdoch’s unilateral act changed all that. And made it possible for Thatcher to bring in her anti-union legislation and usher in her brave new world of un-regulated capitalism.  

Fact Two. Even if today’s trade union leaders had the histrionic skills of the likes of Arthur Scargill, they would not be able to take us back to the 1970s, which the current scare stories suggest. Unions no longer have the power. Because trade union membership has halved. Because the anti-union laws introduced by Thatcher prevent the trade unions from doing many things they could do in 1982. And  because, although we have had a Labour government since 1997 we  now have a lot of of companies, who are actively trying to prevent their employees joining unions. Which fits in beautifully with the Cameron line. If you have decent bosses,  who are Macmillan Conservatives, not Thatcherites, they will look after the work force. No need for troublesome trade unions to rock the management boat.