When in opposition Keir Starmer promised to scrap Tory measures to limit the right to strike. When he became prime minister he moved quickly to identify with the labor movement.
The government last week issued instructions to ignore a Tory law requiring workers to provide a minimum level of service during strikes.
Days earlier, the finance minister had given above-inflation pay rises to millions of public sector workers and settled a pay dispute with junior doctors to end strikes.
These are necessary and welcome steps in the right direction away from an employment model that pursued economic growth by making workers poorer.
Widely accepted change
Under the Conservatives, Britain did not correct the imbalance of power between labor and capital. The need for change was widely accepted. In 2019, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) argued that collective bargaining needed to be “mobilised”.
The new Government’s Work Rights Bill, which will increase the ability of unions to operate in the workplace, is desperately needed.
As union density increases, more workers will be paid more. A more welcoming legal framework for trade unions should also make it easier to achieve wage increases for their members. Starmer takes a different approach to the union-averse New Labor movement.
The Labor Party today sees itself as a self-sufficient political organization that takes input from a range of social actors, but is not constrained by formal ties to anyone in particular.
The tension between Labor and the unions over their values and their economic relationship is real. Understanding this is at the heart of today’s Labor Party. It was encouraging that Starmer’s early actions suggested he wanted to pursue a specific good cause. And that’s good.
