Manx employers have been waxing lyrical about the need for the island to grow its workforce, with 15,000 extra workers needed according to them.
However, unlike the Manx trade union movement, two of whose unions employ full-time staff, the Chamber doesn’t like to practise what it preaches. Its staff are ‘part-time’!
When you hear statements like the most recent from the Chamber of Commerce, you can bet your bottom dollar they will not be insisting this plethora of new workers should have the right to organise themselves in trade unions.
In the Isle of Man some employers have always intimidated workers and discouraged them from joining unions.
Worst offenders were retail, hospitality trade (bar staff and catering), and construction. Some of the most bitter disputes were over recognition. Bizarrely, some employers would assert their employees did not want unions, that they were happy with the status quo. But when you got down to some serious organising, the opposite was always the case!
Both the government and employers, when they find themselves ‘in a bind’, seldom claim that it’s grasping businesses or inane government policies that got us there. Instead, they focus on the need for unions to be ‘realistic’.
Professions are not expected to be realistic over their charges, fancy restaurants to ameliorate their prices or construction firms to be realistic over the prices they charge for houses. But union members and workers generally must be ‘sensible’!
Successive Manx governments have also assisted Manx employers’ ‘union-bashing’ agenda by refusing to introduce statutory rights to recognition even though most of the rest of Western Europe has it on the statute books.
As a proportion of the economically active population of the Isle of Man, they probably constitute about 20 per cent of the workforce. Two of the largest unions, Prospect and Unite, account for 6,000 members alone.
In most other EU States the figure is much lower and in some countries (e.g. France) unions do not even achieve single figure percentages.
Given so many Manx workers opt to join unions, one would think they should have a stronger voice with government.
Under the Bell government the role of trade unions has been steadily diminished. The unions probably had a stronger voice in relative terms during the Walker administration 25 years ago when at least there was the MNEDC tripartite grouping which ensured some of the more bizarre statements from the Chamber of Commerce were balanced.
Additionally, unions constantly have to ‘explain’ themselves in the media and they are often the subject of unbalanced reporting. In addition the media on occasions try to turn sections of workers into pariahs.
Two years ago it was busmen. Latterly it’s been civil servants, airport and hospital workers, etc, and their pay and pensions. The media/press sensationalise a story – after all that’s their game, selling papers or attracting listeners.
They think unions are fair game but other groups do not attract the same opprobrium. For example, when was the last time you heard excessive profits being targeted by the media or the fees of professions brought under the spotlight?
Unions both at a public and private sector level keep the nation ‘ticking’ (they must do – remember they are one in five of the population) and yet they seem shut out of the decision-making process of civil society.
Although Manx workers are more likely to join unions than colleagues in other countries, the government and business work against them, not with them, attempting to reduce or eliminate their influence, but it’s not working.
Union membership continues to grow!