Since the 1970s, the British trade union movement has increasingly used the underpinning of legislation, directives and guidelines to
protect working people. This has had numerous advantages – the protection of
mostly vulnerable un-unionised workers being the most obvious, such as through
the National Minimum Wage Act. It has, in many areas, however, made the
movement dependent on state action, rather than action that has liberated
workers themselves. In some cases we have become beholden to it – such as the
growing panic about what a renegotiation of Britain’s terms of membership of
the EU would result in. We've lost the confidence, and some might say that
ability, to win these basic protections through fighting employers. It’s the deepest
wound of the servicing culture which the movement is trying to heal.
Increasingly too, unions have worked with other groups, and
built new partnerships not only in the context of changing civil society, but
also as a result of the changing expectations of potential members in a
neo-capitalist world. There have been great benefits to this, and there is no
denying that some corporate responsibility programmes, or working to access hard-to-reach
workers through community groups like churches have bought real changes. The
negative side of this has been the creation of campaigns which have too narrow a focus, often removed from grass-root issues, or have been driven by values not entirely in line with the
principles that (should) drive the movement, like agitation, education and class
solidarity.
The Living Wage Foundation and its accreditation is a
manifestation of the real pitfalls of this approach in two critical ways:
firstly, its narrow focus makes clear the problems in alliances with other
groups, particularly apparently friendly employers, secondly its failure to
implement those values that should drive our movement is marginalising the true
voices of working people.
