Modernise or die, Blair and Brown warn the unions
TONY Blair and Gordon Brown delivered a blunt “modernise or die” message to Britain’s trade unions yesterday just 24 hours after union barons called for the repeal of Conservative labour laws.
In a co-ordinated attack at the Trades Union Congress conference in Brighton, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor both made clear that there was no future in a revival of union militancy.
The union conference opened on Monday with a unanimous call for the ban on secondary picketing, introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1990, to be repealed after the Gate Gourmet catering workers’ dispute at Heathrow.
But in a crushing response last night, Mr Blair effectively told union barons to get real, face up to globalisation or cease to exist. Addressing the annual conference dinner, the Prime Minister urged union leaders to fi nd solutions “based on reality”. He effectively called for a new relationship between the Labour Party and the trade union movement.
He said he understood the “strong feelings” caused by the Gate Gourmet dispute in which 667 workers were sacked. But in one of his bluntest warnings to the trade union movement, Mr Blair added: “It would be dishonest to tell you any Labour government is going to legislate a return to secondary action. It won’t happen.”
Mr Blair also made clear his willingness to face down mounting union anger over planned reforms to public sector pensions, insisting that the “fi nancial commitment” was rising and that the issue was “high on our agenda”.
The Prime Minister appeared to single out yesterday’s reports from the conference of union bosses urging Labour to roll back part of the union controls introduced by the Thatcher government but now embraced by his party.
“What you don’t need is another round of publicity about the usual demands on the Labour government met with the usual refusals,” Mr Blair said.
Urging the movement to undergo a “ fundamental modernisation”, he indicated that with a report showing two thirds of workers wanted good workplace representation, unions had to respond.
He recalled how Labour, by introducing one-member, one-vote to its internal proceedings, had tackled “unrepresentative activists” wielding too much power.
Warning his audience of the threat to the economy of the growing might of China and India, Mr Blair urged unions to address that reality and work with the Government to face it.
Mr Brown had earlier told the full conference that there was no way secondary picketing would be made legal again.
In a speech that made clear that a Brown-led government would aim to keep new Labour anchored in the centre Right, the Chancellor said: “I tell you straight. There must be no return to the fiscal irresponsibility, the economic short-termism, the inflationary pay deals, and the old conflicts and disorder of the past.”
Mr Brown’s address, largely listened to in stony silence by a packed conference hall and greeted with sparse applause, immediately prompted a warning from Amicus, the giant manufacturing union, that its support for the Chancellor in a future leadership contest was not guaranteed
Derek Simpson, the general secretary of Amicus, said that although it was “ almost certain that Gordon Brown will succeed Tony Blair, whether he gets our support will be determined by if he supports us on our issues”. brendan.carlin@ telegraph.co. uk