Under Blair’s first term in office, there was a general mood of expectation that something would change for the better. But in fact, apart from a few minor reforms, Blair continued with Tory policies, including cuts in benefits for single mothers and the introduction of tuition fees. The privatisation programme also continued, as did Compulsory Competitive Tendering in the form of the so-called Best Value in local government. Again, Private Finance Initiative (PFI), originally inspired by the Tories, allowed private companies to squeeze massive profits out of the public sector. Throughout this period, there were continuous attacks on jobs, wages and conditions both in the public and the private sector, as workers were increasingly subjected to the “rigours of the market”. Despite the TUPE legislation, which was supposed to safeguard terms and conditions in any transfer of jobs to the private sector, privatisation brought in a two-tier workforce, as the new recruits were employed on poorer wages, terms and conditions.

“Unless these discussions are concluded soon there will be an almighty row within the Labour Party”, threatened Dave Prentis, the general secretary of Unison. The unions managed to squeeze some concessions from the government over this issue. Under a code of practice issued in the summer of 2002, new recruits were to be offered “broadly comparable” terms to previous public-sector workers, taking local labour-market conditions into account. The code, however, was amended further to state that the terms offered must be “no less favourable” than workers employed in local government.

As expected, the private sector bosses raised a howl of protest. “Our costs will go up and outsourcing will become more expensive to the public sector”, stated Norman Rose, head of the Business Services Association. Mandy Wright, of the local government employers’ organisation, said her members want to be fair to staff (of course, who would dream of anything less!), but were concerned that the new regime will lead to “rigidity” and slow down modernisation (meaning detrimental to their profits). As a result of this pressure, the Blair government once again retreated, blocking attempts to transfer this understanding from council workers to the public sector as a whole, thereby maintaining the two-tier labour market.

Ironically, such were the dreadful conditions in Britain that British workers benefited from the European Social Chapter, which served to provide a minimum protection for workers in the EU. Different directives, such as the Working-Time Directive, were welcomed by trade unionists as some kind of safety net. However, these rights were far from automatic or guaranteed in workplaces, and, even if conceded, needed to be underpinned by trade union organisation. While the Thatcher government refused point-blank to sign up to the Social Chapter, the Blair government, under pressure from the movement, had promised to do so. It was no real sacrifice as the rest of Europe had already signed up to the Chapter, even those with the right-wing governments. Nevertheless, under pressure from big business, Blair backtracked on a whole series of worker-friendly reforms, watering down or avoiding their implementation.

In the spring of 2003 for instance, the government blocked a European directive aimed at protecting the pay and rights of temporary staff. Alan Johnson, the then minister for workers’ rights and one-time general secretary of the CWU, shamefully led demands for a watered-down version, preventing agency workers (some 600,000 working in Britain) getting the same terms and conditions as permanent staff. The move delighted the Tories. “The Labour government, instead of talking tough for business, has actually delivered”, stated Philip Bushill-Matthews, the Conservative spokesman in the European parliament.[11]

Blair continued to boast publicly that Britain was the most deregulated economy in the western world. He claimed to be creating the best possible climate for the success of big business. Such pronouncements had serious implications for workers and their families. As more and more became increasingly alienated from the pro-business policies of the New Labour government, pressures were building up in the working class for a backlash against Blairism. The official figures from the Office for National Statistics for 2002 saw the number of days lost in strikes jump to 1,323,000, the highest figure since 1990. The total was more than double the 2001 figure and over twice the annual average in the previous decade. The number of working days lost was the highest since 1996. Most significantly, the number of workers involved climbed to nearly a million, the highest since the miners’ strike of 1984, and a massive rise over the 179,900 level for 2001. Although small compared to the Seventies and Eighties, with the turmoil in society, the trend and direction is clear enough.

“A resurgent labour movement is confronting the government of Tony Blair with the biggest threat of widespread industrial action in the two decades since Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher broke trade union power over the British economy,”

noted The New York Times.

Railroad employees, mail deliverers, police officers, teachers, hospital workers and civil service unions are all threatening walkouts in the coming months, egged on by a new generation of radical leaders and playing to Britons’ discontent with the state of their public services.

Given the ebbs and flows of the class struggle, whether this level of industrial action sustains itself or not, it is certain that a qualitatively new situation – the most turbulent since the Second World War – has opened up in Britain.

  1. The Financial Times, 22 May 2003

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