Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 150 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hendy, because I think that it is worth taking just a moment to consider the impact of the reduction in union bargaining power that we have seen on ordinary working people in this country. That will not take long, because it is plain to see, in stagnating living standards and the drag on fair growth, but it is also worth considering how the position of the party opposite on industrial action has evolved over time. In April 1980, the then Secretary of State for Employment, Jim Prior, introduced an Employment Bill which restricted secondary action, but he certainly did not advocate that it should be banned altogether. The then Conservative Government’s position was that secondary action should in fact remain lawful if it related to a first customer and/or supplier that was of direct importance to the original dispute. Jim Prior said that “the only other position that we could take would be to say that there will be no immunity for anything other than primary action. I do not believe … that that is either a practical or a reasonable position to take”. He also said that, by protecting the right to take secondary action in relation to a customer or supplier, “We are seeking to reach a position which we believe is fair and which recognises the traditional rights of the trade union movement”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/4/1980; col. 1490.] Back then, a Conservative Minister could acknowledge that the relationship between an employer, on one hand, and workers and their unions, on the other, is an inherently unequal one. But, of course, Jim Prior did not last long in that role and, under successive Conservative Governments, the inequality of power between workers and employers was deliberately and repeatedly reinforced. Secondary action, or solidarity action as it is commonly called, was effectively outlawed in 1990, but here is the problem that I invite noble Lords to reflect on when considering the arguments of my noble friend Lord Hendy. Business was handed a unilateral power to define what secondary action is and, unfortunately, that is an invitation to an abuse of power. This is not an academic point. It was only after a six-week strike in 1984 that Ford sewing machinists finally secured full equal pay, but the victory was short-lived. Ultimately, the company took the decision to outsource those jobs and so avoid any need for pay parity, secure in the knowledge that solidarity action from workers in the customer company would become unlawful. Today, some companies continue to use long supply chains and complex outsourcing arrangements to effectively balkanise workers’ bargaining power. For example, take a company that decides to boost profit margins by targeting one part of the work- force for wage cuts. To prevent fellow workers from participating in industrial action to resist those pay cuts, a company can simply divide itself in two. To paraphrase Jim Prior, is that fair?