In the late 70s, trade union membership was at a height of twelve million; today it is down to six million. However, Frances O'Grady, General Secretary of the TUC, believes that no matter how bad things are today, they would have been much worse without a trade union movement.
"Trade unions have been involved in a thirty year battle against a set of ideas called neo-liberalism that says the best way of running the country is to let the top elite do very well and eventually it will trickle down to the rest of us" she explains.
She points to growing inequality in society and the way in which it has affected peoples' lives, including the destruction of public services and the loss of one million jobs which has hit peoples' standard of living, particularly women because they depend on services such as the NHS and Surestart Centres.
O'Grady thinks that people are now looking for a deeper change in society and the way in which the country runs... "I believe we are at a crossroads moment; are we going to buy this ideology any longer? Or are we going to say we need a new set of values for this country, ones about fairness, everyone sharing in the economic recovery and recognising that if you are going to redistribute wealth you need to redistribute power and that it won't just happen by itself."
The TUC chief is proud of the role that trade unions have played in the hard times that this country has been living through. But she is realistic about the problems of organising workers in a `flexible' labour market... "The Government is making claims about an economic revival but behind the headlines we can see that unemployment is now being distributed amongst a larger number of people. And for the first time in the UK there is the problem of the underemployment of millions of people stuck in part-time jobs or on zero hour contracts."
She points to some of the wins that have been made by marginalised workers, including the Curzon Cinema workers in London, the campaign by the Bakers Union to organise fast food workers and the pressure put on large employers over the use and abuse of unpaid internships.
The TUC strategy is to tackle the unfairness at the heart of the labour market..."We believe we need to strengthen the rights for workers both collectively and individually and that will give us a better chance of organising them." The Labour Party has responded to TUC lobbying by promising that if it gets back into power after the General Election it will give new powers to the Low Pay Commission to set higher rates of the minimum wage in certain industries, including the care industry, contract cleaning and food production.
O'Grady says; "It will mean that we don't end up helping bad employers by undercutting the role of decent ones and stop the spiral of a race to the bottom on pay".
It's a back to basics role for the TUC. O'Grady is emphatic about that; "We have to tell young people the truth that, unless you get organised, as each generation has had to do, the odds are against you. You need to band together at work to win better pay and conditions and respect."
But she is also very aware that trade unions themselves need to change... "We have done amazing things against the odds but we have got to do more." She feels that change needs to come in the way trade unions organise... "Sometimes our structures and cultures end up looking too much like a club and not a movement." That means that trade unions should be more representative of their members or the workers they want to get to join the unions. This includes women and people from black and ethnic minorities.
Democracy is at the heart of O'Grady's strategy for a fairer society with trade unions playing an important role. She understands the history of struggle for democracy in this society and the battles that have been fought in the past but she is not nostalgic about that history.
"It's no good celebrating heroes or heroines of the past if we don't respect them by using our vote and fighting for a deeper more equal democracy", she says and is concerned that growing cynicism about the political system will mean that people do not vote in elections. "It plays into hands of an elite who don't care if we don't vote and by doing so we will let them off the hook."
O'Grady comes from an Irish background; her grandfather came over from Dublin to work in the building industry and was a trade unionist and socialist. Nowadays he would be stereotyped as a foreign worker but it was the Irish and other ethnic minorities who were at the bottom end of the labour market and were involved in some of the greatest political struggles. As she says; "Very often we talk about migrant workers as 'victims' but they are very often the ones who have the guts to take the first steps to organise themselves at work." There is a lesson there.
2015 Frow Lecture
'The future of the left - where next for Labour, trade unions and the working class?'
Frances O'Grady
Saturday 16th May 2:15pm-4pm
Note: Change of venue - the Lecture will now be held at Manchester Mechanics Institute*
Free - no tickets, just turn up early to guarantee a seat. For more details click here
* The UCU union is in dispute with University of Salford and Frances O'Grady asked, in the circumstances, for the venue to be moved which has now been arranged.
In 2018 the TUC will be celebrating its 150 anniversary. It was set up in the Mechanics Institute in Manchester. Frances O'Grady wants people to contact her if they have ideas about how it should be celebrated.
Bernadette Hyland has just published her new book Northern ReSisters Conversations with Radical Women. See review and purchase details click here
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