Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-23
Topic: Labor
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support the amendment so expertly moved by my noble friend Lady Hayter, and I refer to my entry in the Members’ register in doing so. Listening to my noble friend, I was struck by the chasm between the Bill’s punitive restrictions and the realities of management and industrial relations on the ground. I will refer to two personal experiences in this: one as a Cabinet Minister, the other as a trade unionist As Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with my noble friend, who was a Minister alongside me, I oversaw a budget of £140 billion and a staff of more than 100,000 at the time, in 2007-08. It was very apparent to me and my Permanent Secretary—at the time it was Leigh Lewis, who was very respected, including by me— as well as to his senior managers that facility time for union representatives was often crucial in resolving grievances and local disputes, which otherwise could have got out of hand. Sometimes these grievances resulted from personality clashes, not only from management’s side but from the union or staff side, and union representatives with facility time played an indispensable role. I am absolutely confident, from direct experience of working with the senior managers at the DWP, that union representatives played an indispensable role in resolving matters which would otherwise have escalated and sometimes taken a great deal longer to resolve. There was a network of representatives, known to management as well as to staff members. If something came up, staff could immediately contact the representatives, who would normally be available because of facilities arrangements. On the other hand, if something came up that management was concerned to pre-empt or to resolve, it could contact somebody to sort it out. This is common-sense industrial relations. Again, I am sorry to refer to our previous lives—myself as a Cabinet Minister and the Minister as a senior manager in an important private-sector organisation dealing directly with trade unions—but she must know that what I am saying is true: facility time helps the smooth running of organisations in the public sector as well as in the private sector In the DWP, it was not always plain sailing. We had to deal with the PCS union, and senior managers had their frustrations with that; frankly, sometimes I shared those frustrations. There was the odd abuse—there often is, in all forms of life—but those abuses could be dealt with by the unions and managers concerned. But with trade unions playing the role which they were founded to play, and which their members insist, through accountability mechanisms, they always play—that is, to represent their own staff—I would have thought that managers would welcome facility time, particularly when, as my noble friend Lady Hayter so aptly put it, it should be for management to decide these matters, not for statutory obligations, imposed sometimes through draconian regulations which we have not even seen but which are hinted at in this Bill and look draconian as a result. That seems to be very negative and reactionary indeed. That is the first example.