Industrial Relations

After Bob Crow, What Next?

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

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Thus the Bob Crow era came to an abrupt and unexpected end, with the death of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union’s general secretary at the tragically early age of 52.

Bob Crow inspired strong feelings in many people, this blog included, but today is not the day to revisit those battles – Crow leaves behind a wife and four children, as well as countless devastated friends and admirers.

Indeed, regardless of what one may think of Crow’s ideology and tactics, the fact that he did good by his members (at least in the short-medium term) is indisputable. Tube drivers earn more than twice the starting salary of a new teacher, a remarkable if somewhat galling fact. RMT members’ loyalty to and trust in Bob Crow was well earned.

But what is likely to happen now that the gates have closed on the era of Bob Crow? Despite the efforts of a few other pretenders here and there, there does not seem to be the same appetite for the repeating, predictable, militant industrial action strategy that he rigorously followed.

And so as the RMT head office staff return to work tomorrow, the burning question will be whether the union chooses another leader willing to exploit the fact that he has London commuters gripped by the unmentionables to continue showering their members with terms and concessions that others can only dream of, or if they will decide to quit while they are ahead?

There is a compelling argument that Bob Crow’s tenure will come to be viewed as the high watermark of what activist, militant unionism can achieve for semi-skilled workers. The RMT’s most recent victory over Transport for London in the recent tube strikes was just as much a result of the abysmal strategy and negotiating tactics of TfL, and London mayor Boris Johnson’s dithering, than it was a Bob Crow triumph. A less hapless guardian of the public purse might have not allowed the RMT to get away with so many concessions.

This, ultimately, was the paradox that Bob Crow created for his members: with each passing victory, each benchmark-busting pay increase or working practices concession flaunted in the face of other workers and the general British public, the RMT only served to make the case for altering the people-to-technology ratio even further against employing real human beings.

Many lines on the London Underground are already highly automated. Indeed, the Docklands Light Railway is entirely driverless. As purchasing decisions for new rolling stock and signalling technology come around, a climate of industrial unrest – or the weary “what will they demand of us this time” mentality that it has created – can only make the case for maximum automation more compelling.

The cost of all of the RMT’s industrial relations victories – and they are short and medium term triumphs only – has been to make labour so expensive in relation to capital that the simple solution of exchanging the unreliable (labour) for the reliable (capital) has become a no-brainer. Boris Johnson, exasperated at the impact of unpredictable strikes on his mayoralty, is known to be interested. And contrary to what the RMT might say, or however they seek to misuse the memory of 7/7, most Londoners will be much happier to be whisked from A to Z under the streets of London at the hands of a computerised train than by an excessively remunerated humanoid with a tendency to go AWOL around Christmas or major international football tournaments.

Another side note of interest is the fact that Ed Miliband was so cautious in his praise of the RMT’s late leader, as the Guardian reports:

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said: “Bob Crow was a major figure in the labour movement and was loved and deeply respected by his members.

“I didn’t always agree with him politically but I always respected his tireless commitment to fighting for the men and women in his union. He did what he was elected to do, was not afraid of controversy and was always out supporting his members across the country.”

How far Ed Miliband has seemingly come since the days when he willingly leaped on stage with anti-austerity protesters and a cast of characters from all over the left wing political spectrum.

Could it be that so soon after Bob Crow’s latest triumph over the hapless Transport for London negotiating team and reconfirmation that public sector workers are being paid more than their private sector counterparts – at the height of his power – Crow had become somewhat politically toxic?

And so, when Robert Crow of Woodford Green is buried, dead at the height of his influence, his legacy is far from being set in stone. Mourned by his trades union colleagues, and his RMT members most of all, Crow’s ambition and determination helped them to prosper in recent years, while many other workers did not.

But, when we are all zipping around London in efficient driverless trains at 3AM on a bank holiday, will they still be so grateful to his memory?

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Tribute to RMT leader Bob Crow, who died on 11th March 2014, written on the Service Information board at Covent Garden Underground Station

 

The text of the impromptu memorial to Bob Crow at Covent Garden Underground station, written on the Service Information board:

“Fear of death follows fear of life. A man who lives life fully is prepared to die at any time” – Mark Twain

R.I.P. Robert Crow RMT

13/06/1961 – 11/03/2014

Thatcherism’s Losers

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

The public and media reaction to the recent death of Margaret Thatcher has played out in exactly the way that I and probably everyone else in the nation had been predicting for the past decade.

The former prime minister was lionised in the right-wing press, and indeed by myself, as someone who quite literally saved the country, halting and then dramatically reversing what was considered by many to be a slow and inevitable national decline.

She was remembered as a “divisive” leader by the left-leaning media, some of whom grudgingly acknowledged the necessity of many of the economic policies which Thatcher brought about, while others chose to set reality aside and focus exclusively on the negative aspects of her time in office.

Some people showed their bad taste by holding spontaneous celebratory street parties on hearing the news.

And finally, of course, everyone got huffy with everyone else for not responding to Baroness Thatcher’s death by their own personal definition of the “appropriate” way.

Of course it is fitting that we recognise and remind people of the enormous positive contribution – the most significant of any post war politician – that Thatcher made to the United Kingdom, and to the world. But we would be doing ourselves an intellectual injustice, and helping to ensure that the next visionary British conservative leader (whoever he or she may be) will also be labelled as “divisive” and hated by many, if we do not understand the lingering bitterness which led to speeches such as this one, made by the Labour Member of Parliament for Hampstead & Kilburn (London), my local MP Glenda Jackson:

 

Harsh and bitter words, borne of harsh and bitter experiences. But were the people who lost and suffered the most from 1979-1990 really let down by the prime minister, or by someone or something else?

I would argue that it was not the prime minister herself who failed Thatcherism’s biggest losers, but by the long line of political leaders in Britain heading back to the end of the Second World War and the subsequent post-war settlement, which brought about the nationalisation of industry and the freedom from competition that allowed so much of the British economy to atrophy and wither over time, gradually becoming less and less sustainable and competitive with each passing year, until only the harsh but necessary medicine of Thatcherism was able to save the country, at a much higher social cost than might otherwise have been the case.

We can see an excellent modern-day example of this exact argument being made by the highly popular Republican governor of the state of New Jersey, Chris Christie:

 

Replace the phrase “unfunded pension obligations” with “state-owned industries” in this speech and you have an eloquent defence of Thatcherism that you can deliver in a single minute. Christie explains that he understands the anger and frustration of the people in his state who are materially losing out in terms of stagnating wages for public sector jobs, trimmed pensions for retired state workers, and a host of other measures that the governor considered harsh but necessary in order to put New Jersey on a sound and sustainable financial footing, but that his policies are necessary because none of his predecessors had the political courage or common decency to level with the electorate about the problems that lay ahead, and the changes and sacrifices that would have to be made.

In Britain, those who lost out the most tended to work in inefficient, state-owned industries such as coal mining or car production, where Britain simply did not have a competitive advantage. They had effectively been lied to, and shielded from competition, by nearly all of the political leaders in Britain since the end of the Second World War. Just as generations of New Jersey politicians had promised their public sector workers generous pension and benefit entitlements that they knew would become unsustainable over time, so generations of British politicians promised the population here that heavy industry, state-owned monopolies and industrial relations tilted in favour of union bosses were sustainable in the long-term.

Could and should more have been done to support people who lost their livelihoods as the Thatcher reforms took effect across the country. Absolutely. And we need to ensure that when a future conservative leader makes the next set of necessary reforms (the urgent rationalisation and shrinking of the public sector in Britain) that adequate support is given to people in terms of new job placement and new skills training. There are parts of the United Kingdom where over 50% of employment comes from the public sector, a ridiculously high number – people busily providing and receiving government services to and from each other, and only half of the workforce engaged in private sector activities that generate value and wealth. But as we move away from this failed model, it is not morally acceptable, or politically viable, to rationalise the public sector without providing the necessary transitional support. We can, for example, have no more communities decimated – though the British public must also play their part by increasing our notoriously low labour flexibility and being willing to relocate for work.

Margaret Thatcher achieved much during her time in office. Lord knows that in today’s age of focus groups, granular polling of every single issue and the obsession with following public opinion, we need a leader who is a true conviction politician, and who persuades people to their cause rather than slavishly seeking positive headlines in The Sun or The Daily Mail.

But while conservatives such as myself celebrate the extraordinary legacy of Margaret Thatcher, we need to be sure that we formulate and advocate policies that avoid her pitfalls as well as emulate her great victories.