Steve Coulter

A Bonfire of the Regulations, Or Business as Usual? The UK Labour Market and the Political Economy of Brexit

Employment and labour market regulation initially appeared as one of the solid red lines in the UKs renegotiation of the countrys place in the EU. The basic argument is that the UKs more deregulated labour market would sit uneasily in the more organised models, based on statutory instruments or collective bargaining, found on the continent. While there is a legitimate problem here, EU employment regulations appear manageable from the point of view of business, while unions see them as important tools for socially responsible economic restructuring. Most of UK employment case law is now deeply entangled with EU law; labour market regulations have, on the whole, become part of the way of doing business in the Single Market; and a simple cost–benefit analysis appears impossible because some costs are not quantifiable and the costs of others are reduced when taken as a bundle. Labour unions agree that transposition of European law needs to be done taking into account local sensitivities, while internationally oriented companies do not see EU regulations on the whole as detrimental to business. Importantly, though, the costs and benefits of EU employment regulations are not symmetrically distributed across different companies: large companies are better able to reap the rewards and accommodate the costs of operating in the Single Market than smaller companies.

New Labour policy, industrial relations and the trade unions

List Of Tables 1. Introduction: Political Trade Unionism In A Cold Climate 2. The Political Economy Of UK Industrial Relations: A Theoretical And Historical Overview 3. Loosening Party-Union Ties: Clause 4 And OMOV 4. Insider Lobbying In Action: The TUC And New Labours First Term Agenda 5. Political Unionism And Political Exchange In Labours Second Term 6. Conclusion: Political Trade Unionism Reconsidered Notes Bibliography

Skill Formation, Immigration and European Integration: The Politics of the UK Growth Model

ABSTRACT While a reluctant European player now heading for the Exit, the UK was also an enthusiastic adopter of several key EU economic policies – namely, the skills and technology policies of Agenda 2020 and labour mobility. These initiatives worked with existing British policy, and structural biases, to exacerbate the already bifurcated structure of UK capitalism – between the high-paid technology and financial services sector on the one hand, and low-cost, low-wage sectors on the other hand. In particular, and central to the argument of this paper, immigration from Eastern and Central Europe after 2004 helped to sustain low-cost manufacturing and services industries by undermining firms’ incentives to invest in training. This combined with endemic failures in the UK’s skills system, which is heavily geared towards producing graduates with general skills but neglects the needs of mid and lower segments of the labour market. EU integration, therefore, exacerbated cleavages over skills between high- and low-productivity sectors and may have contributed to social divisions that led to Brexit.

Signalling Moderation: UK Trade Unions, ‘New Labour’ and the Single Currency

The paper examines why, and under what conditions, certain interest groups adopt positive positions on international economic issues. It provides a case study of how UK trade unions formed their preferences on membership of the EMU. Previous explanations of this have tended to emphasise the international dimension – either the material benefits on offer or whether or not they became ‘Europeanised’. A few authors are now exploring domestic political explanations instead. The paper builds on this growing literature to argue that the TUC, the peak association of organised labour in the UK, became extremely pro-EMU as part of a strategy to demonstrate its moderation to Tony Blair’s centrist ‘New’ Labour party, which was distancing itself from unions to court business.

The Political Economy of UK Industrial Relations: A Theoretical and Historical Overview

The theoretical and historical literature on Labour Party and interest group politics in a globalised world is concisely reviewed in this chapter. Three main propositions are set out which frame the overall argument of the book. First, governments of the Left are not imprisoned, either by globalisation or by their specific ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ (VoC), and retain the ability to pursue partisan policies potentially favourable to unions. Second, the UK’s political system prevents the open formation of a ‘progressive alliance’ in which trade unions could play an open and constructive part in national politics. Third, the fragmented structure of UK trade unions renders the Labour-union alliance inherently unstable. Taken together, these arguments suggest that insider lobbying out of the public eye by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) may be the least destabilising method of conducting the alliance.

Political Unionism and Political Exchange in New Labour’s Second Term

The limitations of the Trades Union Congress’s (TUC’s) ‘insider’ strategy became apparent during New Labour’s second term in office. The TUC’s strategy shifted to attempting to influence the UK government indirectly by pushing for European Union (EU) social legislation on conditions and worker representation via the EU. However, this route also gained limited traction and this was a period when disaffection with the TUC’s opaque insider strategy grew among its left-wing member unions. These began to push for more direct confrontation with the government, culminating in the 2004 Warwick Agreement in which party leaders agreed a series of policy concessions in exchange for continued guarantees of trade union funding. However, this was a largely ineffective strategy, producing few genuine concessions and further damaging the party-union relationship.

‘Insider’ Lobbying in Action: The TUC and New Labour’s First Term Agenda

The focus of this chapter is on how the Trades Union Congress’s (TUC’s) ‘insider lobbying’ strategy worked in practice. When New Labour came to power in May 1997, the TUC lobbied hard to ensure it enacted in full its industrial relations program, despite the opposition of employers. The chapter provides an overview of New Labour’s policymaking structure and the main routes that remained open to interest groups to lobby them following the centralisation of policymaking structures over the previous decade; it also explores some of the key features of the TUC’s interaction with New Labour which were emblematic of how interest group influence was conducted during its time in office. It then examines two of New Labour’s main industrial relations policies — the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and legislation on statutory union recognition — and shows how the TUC was instrumental in negotiating these.

Conclusion: Political Trade Unionism Reconsidered

The concluding chapter examines the evidence concerning the unions’ effect on policy, and argues that the Trades Union Congress (TUC) had a limited, but real, effect on Labour’s policies. The chapter also offers some reflections on the prospects and strategies of interest groups in ‘hostile’ political-economic environments.

Introduction: Political Trade Unionism in a Cold Climate

Often considered hostile or indifferent to the concerns of trade unions, Tony Blair’s ‘New Labour’ in fact enjoyed a complex relationship with unions based on mutual reliance and suspicion. Far from pandering only to the needs of business, Blair’s government pursued a distinctive social-democratic agenda and gave unions a genuine, if limited, role in the design of this. The introductory chapter to the book sets out several alternative pathways for unions to exert influence over Labour governments and argues that one of these, ‘insider lobbying’ by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), was crucial in steering Blair’s free market agenda in a more collectivist direction.

Loosening Party-Union Ties: Clause 4 and OMOV

From the late 1980s the Labour Party responded to a series of crushing electoral defeats by reforming party structures to make itself electable. Many of these changes were directed at reducing its financial dependence on the trade unions and bolstering the control of the leadership over party governance and policy development. The chapter addresses the question of why the trade unions acquiesced in this diminution of their influence over the party they had founded in the nineteenth century, and what alternative means became available to them to lobby party and government leaders in the growing absence of formal channels of influence.