Article for the Planet - The Welsh Internationalist - 230 Summer 2018
Len Arthur is a retired academic, but not retired as a socialist,
trade union and community activist. He has been living and working in Wales
since the early 1970s.
Inequality of power of the employer over the individual
employee is a fundamental characteristic of the employment relationship. When
someone enters into employment they do so as an individual, having to accept a
pre-existing contract backed by a larger organisation with structures of management
and control. At the point of employment an individual worker experiences the
full weakness of being in a labour market.
Once in work the experience of being under the powerful
control of others only intensifies. Work ̶ or labour power as Marx would
describe it ̶ is a peculiar commodity
purchased by an employer. Labour power has the potential to produce more value
than is paid out in wages. It is not just a commodity that is consumed and
loses value: it has the potential to actually add value. The employer thus has
to realise this potential and will use all the organisational power available
to pay as little in wages and to extract as much effort as is possible. From
the first day of work, the employer fixes the terms of employment so the new
employee will produce surplus value ̶
the difference between wages and the value of the goods or service produced –
quickly and predictably.
Historically, extremes of worker exploitation have been alleviated
by hard-won law. It was recognised by wider society that basic protections were
needed to modify the power of the employer. In the UK the early Factory Acts
limited the length of the working day, initially for women and children. Health
and safety legislation has had to be introduced to try to stop people being
killed, maimed or poisoned at work. More recently in the UK, after years of
agitation, minimum wage legislation has had to be introduced to provide a basic
wage that gives some chance of providing a living.
The law is a blunt instrument to cover a dynamic employment
relationship, and enforcement is patchy. Trade union organisation, until
recently, enabled many new workers to start employment in workplaces where
previous workers had collectively negotiated, agreed and won contracts by
challenging the power of the employer. Sadly, the number of workplaces where
this is the case has declined across the UK: potentially as few as 13% of all
workers in private employment and barely 50% in the public sector are trade
union members.
Precarious work, where extremes of exploitation and inequality
are experienced, is no longer the exception. Precarious work is now being
experienced even in previously well-respected and unionised workplaces. The
recent strikes by junior doctors in England and latterlyuniversity workers across the UK exposed
the trend. The TUC reported[i]
in 2016 that 1 in 10 or 3.2m workers in the UK ‘...are now in precarious work – and the number of
workers at risk of missing out on key employment protections has nearly doubled
in a decade to 1.5 million (an increase of 700,000)’. The
Citizens Advice Bureau[ii] that
year put the figure for workers in England and Wales in insecure work at 4.5m
and in a survey carried out for the GMB union in 2017[iii]
it has been argued that up to 10m workers or nearly one third of the total UK work
force face insecure employment. The GMB report[iv] also revealed that zero-hour and agency contracts
had doubled in Wales since 2011. In a recent and
detailed report[v] from 2017 the TUC shows that the UK trend toward insecure work more
generally is becoming more prevalent, and highlights the sectors of employment
worse hit. In creative arts and entertainment 66% of UK workers experience
insecure work, in personal services (e.g. hairdressing and fitness instruction)
46%, and in land transport 35%. The list largely covers sectors that are
private and historically poorly organised, but not all fit this criteria, with
some traditional public sector areas included such as libraries and museums (17%)
and care for the elderly (20%). These are all industries which are well-represented
in Wales.
The clear conclusion is that precarious and insecure work is
on the increase across Wales and the UK. Surveys that have included the direct
experience of workers indicate this type of work is more widespread than those
that rely more on aggregate data (summary statistics based on multiple
measurements). Without restraint via the law or collective organisation,
employers will use their power over employees to sustain profit levels and
market position. Pressure to do this has built up ̶ with
the increase in international competition, with austerity cuts in the public
sector, with privatisation, with the individualisation of contracts and use of
self-employment in the gig economy, factors which are now overlaid with Brexit
and an ever fiercer international market context, with deregulation of working
conditions becoming the global norm.
The tide can be turned. A pincer
movement,[vi]
with public and media scrutiny exposing the consequences of precarious and
insecure work (and making terms like ‘gig economy’ and ‘precariat’ more
mainstream) together with trade union action, has started to have positive
effects. However, the key to winning an end to this workplace exploitation is
trade union organisation in the workplace itself. It is only the continuous
presence and collective strength of unionised workers that can challenge the
power of the employer on a daily and detailed basis: the law is a good start
but unions are needed to extend and police the law.
In Scotland this form of pincer action has been used to
organise and defend workers through the Better
than Zero campaign[vii].
This is an organisation supported by the Scottish TUC that has formed local
groups around Scotland, bringing together both workers and supporters to embolden
people to expose and fight local employer exploitation, encourage workers to
join trade unions and then to act for union recognition and collective
agreements. Many of the activists are under 25 and some of the stunts have been
effective and original[viii].
One of the most impressive has been supporters dressing in white overalls and
putting hazard-type yellow and black tape around pubs with the slogan ‘Hazard: Bad
Employer’ written on it to encourage a consumer boycott.
Bryan Simpson, the Better than Zero organiser in Scotland,
came to Wales to speak at a meeting in Cardiff in September 2017 organised
jointly by the UCU university workers’ union and People’s Assembly Wales, which
I participated in. As a direct result of the meeting it was agreed to start a
Better than Zero Wales campaign, preparing the ground for an official launch. A Facebook page[ix] was established, and has been well supported,
with the aim of encouraging people experiencing precarious and insecure work in
Wales to come forward and tell us their stories as a start to the organising
and campaigning process. We are aiming to have the official launch in May 2018,
and in the meantime widely leaflet workplaces around Wales. If throughout the
rest of this year, we can achieve here in Wales even half the success that has
been won in Scotland, we will lay the foundations for pushing back the
boundaries of precarious and insecure employment in our country.
If you wish to help or know more, please contact Better than
Zero Wales through the Facebook page or via People’s Assembly Wales: peoplesassemblywales0@gmail.com
[i] https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/32-million-uk-workers-1-10-are-now-precarious-work
[ii] https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/how-citizens-advice-works/media/press-releases/45-million-people-in-insecure-work-reveals-citizens-advice/
[iii] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/05/nearly-10-million-britons-are-in-insecure-work-says-union
[iv] https://www.westwaleschronicle.co.uk/blog/2017/07/04/wales-facing-epidemic-of-precarious-work-gmb-reveals/
