Ballots and Union Government in the 1980s
| Published date | 01 September 1993 |
| Author | Patricia Fosh,Huw Morris,Paul Smith,Roger Undy,Roderick Martin |
| Date | 01 September 1993 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1993.tb00403.x |
British
Journal
of
Industrial
Relations
31:3
Sept
1993 0007-1080
Ballots and Union Government in the
1980s
Paul Smith, Patricia Fosh, Roderick Martin,
Hu
w
Morris and Roger Undy
Abstract
During the
1980s
the Conservative government argued that trade unions'
leaders and policies did not accurately reflect the views of their members.
Accordingly, the Trade Union Act
1984
required that all voting members of
union principal executive committees be periodically elected by individual
members in
a
workplace or postal ballot, and the Employment Act
1988
required that all executive committee members and all officers in attendance
for the purpose of policy deliberation and formulation be periodically elected
by members in
a
postal ballot. This legislation has left an indelible mark upon
the processes
of
union government but it has failed to initiate
a
transformation
in the political complexion of union leadership
or
a
redirection of union
policy.
1.
Introduction
The extensive programme of employment law reform implemented during
the
1980s
by the Conservative government included two statutes
-
the
Trade Union Act
1984
(TUA) and the Employment Act
1988
(EA)- which
required unions to implement specific procedures for their internal govern-
ment overriding their own rulebooks and policies. This was a significant
departure, for the precise regulation
of
union government according
to
a
preconceived model had not previously been considered a legitimate
concern of the law. The TUA stipulated that all voting members
of
union
principal executive committees (PECs) were to be elected by individual
members in a workplace
or
postal ballot; the
EA
further directed that all
PEC members and officers in attendance for the purpose
of
policy
Paul Smith is Lecturer in Industrial Relations, University of Nottingham. Patricia Fosh is
Senior Lecturer in Industrial Relations, Imperial College, London. Roderick Martin
is
Professor
of
Organizational Behaviour, University
of
Glasgow. Huw Morris is Lecturer in
Industrial Relations, Kingston Polytechnic. Roger Undy is Fellow in Industrial Relations,
Templeton College, Oxford.
366
British Journal
of
Industrial Relations
deliberation and formulation were to be elected by individual-member
postal ballot. This paper analyses the impact
of
this legislation upon union
government, but concludes that, despite substantial reforms
to
unions’ rules
and practice, the nature of their leadership and policy has remained largely
unaffected. Where change has occurred, however, this can best be
understood in terms of union context and internal politics, although in
specific cases the introduction of ballots may have hastened the adjustment
process. The legislation’s limited impact and unintended consequences were
the result of two factors: first, the inadequate conception
of
democratic
practice in contemporary British trade unionism which underlay its provi-
sions, and hence a mistaken assessment
of
the impact
of
the introduction
of
periodic elections by ballot; and second, the capacity
of
unions to negotiate
the content
of
their constitutional processes and the resulting political
outcomes, regardless
of
formal statutory requirements.
2.
The Conservative programme: theory and legislation
Ballots were initially a subordinate strand in the Conservative prescription
for industrial relations reform; the Employment Act 1980 provided state
funds to offset the cost of postal ballots, but the autonomy of unions was
respected and they remained free to adopt the procedures and apply for
financial assistance if they wished (Undy and Martin 1984: Ch.
1).
Given the
successful boycott organized by the TUC, this part
of
the Act had a
negligible impact (Undy and Martin 1984: 185). The main thrust
of
Conservative legislation lay elsewhere in the restraint of union power
through a reduction of tort immunity, a narrowed definition of lawful
industrial action and picketing, and various restrictions upon the establish-
ment and enforcement of the closed shop (Auerbach 1991).
The publication in 1983
of
the Green Paper,
Democracy in Trade Unions
(Department of Employment 1983) heralded a significant shift in Conserva-
tive policy which increasingly came to embody a free-market analysis of the
‘union problem’ and its resolution (Wedderburn 1989). Two themes are
apparent in the Green Paper: an individualist conception
of
members’
citizenship of unions, and the right of the state to impose new structures and
processes for union government by means of legislation. This was justified
by the claim that unions were special organizations in possession
of
‘important legal immunities and privileges not afforded to other organiza-
tions’ (Department
of
Employment 1983: para. l), and the characterization
of
union leaders and policies as unrepresentative
of
members’ views
(para. 1). It was argued that this was caused
by
the parlous state of unions’
democratic practice (paras.
5-12),
compounded by their refusal voluntarily
to institute the reforms facilitated by the Employment Act 1980 (paras.
2,
13). The resulting institutional distortion
of
union members’ interests could
be rectified only by the disfranchisement
of
activists through the intro-
duction
of
individual-member ballots for PEC elections, and in referenda
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