Mike Clancy makes case for a renaissance of collective bargaining

If there is one subject that can unite all strands of trade union opinion it is the urgent need for a renaissance of collective bargaining, Prospect general secretary Mike Clancy says at TUC Congress.

There is no more pressing issue for our political influencing strategies than the creation and delivery of public policy that turns the tide of the decline in voice. Because we will never achieve this by organising alone, particularly in the private sector which must be the focus of our efforts.

There are different opinions in our movement about how to achieve this aim. Sectoral bargaining will undoubtedly be a cornerstone of a new system. But we should be careful what we wish for if we neglect workplace or enterprise bargaining. Beware the consequences of sectoral bargaining that does not animate the decision to join in the workspaces covered.

And what about the bosses? Now, the power relationships in our economy need urgent rebalancing to give voice, but not all employers are bad employers. Some do need to feel the might of ‘sword of justice’ trade unionism, but a majority provide good and responsible employment. So how do we reach them and organise there? In short, we need to think about the other side of the table whether we are talking about sectoral or enterprise level bargaining. Like it or not if we are going to win this argument for a renaissance of voice we need to take some employers with us.

And we need to think about our language. Let’s be honest we use ‘voice’ because ‘collective bargaining’ is our language which is often a mystery to those we are trying to reach. We need to recognise the breadth of different experiences in modern workspaces and adapt our language and methods accordingly.

We have a broken economic model, something else we can agree about. Every year there is outrage about executive pay and every year this will happen unless there is someone to make capital share, we will continue to face equal pay and gender pay gap scandals unless we give voice. And if we exit the EU, this economy is uniquely vulnerable without the renaissance of collective bargaining and collective voice.
We have the evidence, we have new allies, we just have to win the argument, now, for generations to come.