| Employment Relations Bill
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Mr. Djanogly: People have the right to get together to bargain in whichever way they wish. That is a human right, which the legislation should recognise but does not. Mr. Peter Atkinson (Hexham) (Con): The problem that we will have in the debate is that many Government Members, as my hon. Friend rightly says, are still fixated on the 1960s and on the days of huge industries and individual companies employing many thousands of people. The reality for most businesses is quite different. Most employ a few dozen people. Mr. Djanogly: The reality is that the people of this country do not realise what rights have been given back to the unions. If they did—I hope they will—they would react against it. I thank my hon. Friend for reiterating that fact. We maintain that people have individual rights within the collective bargaining regime that the Government are so keen to maintain and to build upon. The question is: at what point should individuals have the right to be heard? The suggested figure of 25 per cent. may be too high. It was included as a conciliatory figure in order to create a balance, but it can be debated. I ask the Government to consider it, because we live in a different age from that being dealt with by the Bill. Mr. Foster: What is being suggested is a threshold of 25 per cent. for collective bargaining. The individual threshold is now one, in the sense that the individuals have the right to choose not to be a member of a union. Mr. Djanogly: I do not suggest 25 per cent. for collective bargaining. I am saying that, if there is to be collective bargaining, the voices of the minority of workers who do not want to be involved should not be dismissed. Mr. Foster: As I see it, the Government seek to maintain the present position, which is that individual rights are wholly maintained for those who do not wish to be part of the collective bargaining unit. People have the absolute right not to be part of the union. It may Column Number: 11 be extremely unwise to take that view, but it is a matter of conscience; it is a personal choice. The law is well established, and no change is intended under the Bill.Mr. Djanogly: I do not think that that is correct. People have a right not to be a member of a union, but surely they do not have the right to avoid the collective bargaining arrangements. Perhaps I am wrong. Mr. Foster: People certainly do not have the right to change the collective bargaining arrangements. The individual contract is a matter for negotiation, but it cannot be contrary to or in opposition to the collective rights that have been negotiated. However, the amendment, with its threshold of 25 per cent., would result in the most dangerous outcome. Even if the union—the majority—has decided on a different course of action, the 25 per cent. could thwart the rights of the majority. In a democracy, the majority should not impose on the rights of the individual, but the majority should none the less have their way. That is what the Bill provides. To impose a 25 per cent. threshold to effective alternative bargaining would not only cause chaos but be unfair. Malcolm Bruce: I oppose the amendment. If only with its rhetoric, the Conservative party seems to be looking back to the dear, dead days of the 1960s. Conservative Members appear to want to reintroduce the potential to be confrontational and divisive. I am trying to imagine a possible scenario. A bargaining situation has been established, to which the majority of workers have agreed, but a substantial minority then say that they want to negotiate different arrangements. The idea that those workers will happily go on working side by side in the same environment with two different bargaining arrangements is nonsense. I cannot imagine that any responsible or sensible employer would regard that as conducive—the word used in amendment No. 1—to good management or good industrial relations. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) that the structure of the labour market has changed radically over the past 20 to 30 years, and that as a result union membership declined and is only just beginning to recover. Indeed, smaller work places operate with a different dynamic. Later in the Bill, we shall be trying to define an appropriate size. In that context, the amendment seems inappropriate.
10 amMr. Djanogly: The hon. Gentleman talks as though everyone is happily involved in unions, that all companies talk happily with the unions and that what we propose is regressive. I hasten to remind him that only a tiny minority of people in the private sector are members of unions. The Bill is about enabling the unions to get in and represent the workers. Malcolm Bruce: The Bill is about the giving the unions the right to get in and represent workers, but it does not impose on workers the obligation to join a Column Number: 12 union. I have been in the House for just over 20 years, and I voted for most of the Conservative reforms in the 1980s because they democratised unions that had become over-powerful and which abused their power. I would not support the Bill if I thought that it reversed the beneficial effects of those reforms. However, I believe that it is a genuine attempt to tidy things up and to get the balance right.Conservative Members should consider carefully whether their approach suggests a party with a genuine interest in good, constructive industrial relations or one that is trying to load the dice so that bad management—we know that there are bad managers—can exploit a work force who have no effective power. We are trying to ensure that responsible managements and responsible unions—as well as individuals who do not want to be part of their arrangements—can operate peacefully and constructively, but the amendment would help to achieve that. Mr. Sutcliffe: I am grateful to those who have spoken. Labour Members and the hon. Member for Gordon outlined the objections to the amendments; these objections go to the root of our attempts to achieve a good balance in industrial relations. The context is that the world is changing in terms of demographics, organisation and the challenge of global competition and we need modern, effective and high-productivity workplaces. We must ask who is living in a time warp. Industrial relations today are a matter of ensuring that people work together as productively as possible, that there is no exploitation and that businesses do well, but the amendments show a fundamental distrust of that way forward. The Government have technical concerns with the construction of the amendments. Leaving that aside, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) dismissed the point about what would happen with de-recognition to people who wanted to stay in a recognised union. The amendments are dangerous—that is the word—and we hope that the hon. Gentleman will, on reflection, not press them. Mr. Bellingham: We have had a good, short debate. The only point that has not been made is that if the union that is recognised does its job properly and looks after its members, there will be no need to overturn that work. However, in the interests of maintaining the spirit of the Committee, and in the hope that we shall return to the issue, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 2 ordered to stand of the Bill.
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