Union With the Devil

By George Monbiot

The new British minister for trade and investment, now responsible for much of the policy that will affect union members, was not just the head of the Confederation of British Industry; he was the most neanderthal boss the CBI has ever had.

Gordon Brown appears to have tested them. It is as if he wanted to discover how far he can go before the affiliated trade unions - which provide most of the Labour party's funds - decide that they have had enough. The results must reassure him: they will tolerate any level of abuse. Turkeys led by chickens, they will never stop voting for Christmas.

His government of all the talents has room for no professional trade unionist. But it does contain their sworn enemy. The new minister for trade and investment, now responsible for much of the policy that will affect union members, was not just the head of the Confederation of British Industry; he was the most neanderthal boss the CBI has ever had. Digby Jones campaigned to freeze the minimum wage, neuter the EU's working time directive, block corporate killing laws, promote privatisation, cripple environmental rules, curtail maternity leave. Of the unions he said, "they are an irrelevance. They are backward looking and not on today's agenda."(1) As if to show who the boss is, Comrade Digby refuses to join the Labour Party: he has been permitted to enter the government on his own terms.

To test the unions further, Brown has appointed Damon Buffini to two of the bodies which will help the government reshape the workforce: the Business Council and the National Council for Educational Excellence. Buffini is the target of the GMB union's most vocal anti-corporate campaign: his private equity company sacked one third of the AA's workforce.

The ragged trousered philanthropists who subsidise this bosses' party mumble and fumble but they will not strike back. Desperate to believe, union leaders cling to broken promises. They refuse to utter the only threat which Brown will heed: disaffiliation.

First published in The Guardian. 10th July 2007