I can’t bear the idea of more people falling into poverty. It is disgusting that in a rich country we have loads of children on the breadline. This should never be happening.”
Anger is not an emotion I’ve come to associate with TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady. Passion? Sure. Fire? That, too. She’s capable of rousing the troops with a punchy speech. But the cold fury that emerges over the course of our conversation knocks me back a little. I’ve known the union leader for nearly a decade, and I can’t remember hearing quite the same tone.
This plight of poorer Britons matters to O’Grady. The suffering they are poised to endure this winter, with inflation all but out of control and affecting food prices? It bothers her. Perhaps because she’s seen life on the other side. She shared a bedroom with her three sisters growing up. She’s waitressed, worked at M&S, peeled onions at a fast-food joint.
There aren’t many non-executive directors at the Bank of England – another position she holds – who’ve done that. O’Grady understands struggle in a way that vanishingly few in public life do.
She speaks very highly of her successor, Paul Nowak, but her impending departure from the union body will still represent a loss. “We have to shame the government into action, but our first job is to try and prevent a disaster from happening,” she says. In the meantime, the TUC and its members have been stepping up work on the provision of emergency support to struggling families, in common with a number of charities. More is on the way.
“Trade unions have always had that dimension to what they do. They have hardship funds. Charitable arms. This is the sort of work that is often not publicised. I can see us having to step it up. We are discussing that in [our] general council. We have to be prepared for the fact that life is going to get very tough for large numbers of people. When people are in trouble, we have an obligation to step up and support.”
So does the government. But that goes unsaid, perhaps because it is obvious. “It shouldn’t have to be this way,” adds O’Grady, still showing signs of frustration. “It ought to be possible to avoid recession. We stepped up when it came to the furlough scheme. We are ready to step up again.”
Furlough saw the union body working alongside the CBI and the Treasury to create what was officially called the job retention scheme. It ran throughout the course of the pandemic, and it is perhaps O’Grady’s crowning achievement. She can point to millions of livelihoods saved as a result of her work and that of her team. O’Grady herself played a key role in the scheme’s creation. Would it have been quite as successful without her being there to work alongside the others? Doubtful.
Credit is also due to Rishi Sunak, who lost out to Liz Truss in the Tory leadership contest, for proving himself willing to listen to non-traditional voices, if only at a time of crisis. Will Truss be prepared to do that in the current crisis? It remains to be seen.
“I think we proved that all wisdom does not reside in Westminster, Whitehall, or in the boardroom. But it seems we are only worth talking to in a crisis. With energy, we are facing a crisis of pandemic-level proportions,” the more than usually upbeat TUC boss says. The TUC “stands ready” to contribute to finding solutions, but argues that “the ball is clearly in Liz Truss’s court”.
Will the new prime minister extend an olive branch to the unions? It’s hard to see that happening. Even if Truss had not surrounded herself with punk Thatcherites and ideologues, she has a reputation for being brittle and rigid in her thinking.
Her mandate is questionable. She finished second to Sunak among Tory MPs, attracting the support of just 113 of the parliamentary party (less than a third). Her winning margin among the members was visible, but narrower than polls had predicted. She got 57 per cent of the votes cast, but with a turnout of 82 per cent, that figure represents just 47 per cent of those eligible to vote.
“She wouldn’t meet the threshold that ministers set for union members voting on strike action,” O’Grady pointed out in a tweet that went viral.
Does Truss really have a mandate for a bonfire of workers’ rights more generally, especially given what the Tory manifesto had to say on the subject? On page five it claimed that Brexit would provide an opportunity to “raise standards in areas like [sic] workers’ rights”. On to page 38: “The increase in employment that the Conservative government has overseen since 2010 is proof that there is no contradiction between high employment and high standards.” It also promised a single enforcement body to “crack down on any employer abusing employment law, whether by taking workers’ tips or refusing them sick pay”, and pledged to “ensure that workers have the right to request a more predictable contract and other reasonable protections”.
O’Grady fears that Truss could become “the P&O prime minister”, a reference to the ferry company that created uproar by firing its workers without consultation and replacing them with staff on less than the minimum wage. Its CEO, in front of incredulous MPs at a Commons hearing, admitted having broken the law.
“We have had 60 days of right-wing dogma on parade. Will the new PM change tack? We’ll have to wait and see, but the alternative is that she will become known as the P&O prime minister. This will not deliver growth. It will damage us all. Making workers poorer and less protected is a guarantee of holding back growth. Working people create wealth. All we ask is a fair share.”
The TUC has just released the results of a GQR Research poll, which shows scant appetite among even Tory voters for cuts to working rights. The survey, of 3,040 respondents, found that 79 per cent of them supported enhancing all workers’ rights retained since the UK left the EU. This rose to 81 per cent among Conservative voters. It found similarly strong backing for an end to “fire and rehire”, for boosting workers’ rights in the gig economy, and for the introduction of “fair pay agreements” across sectors to create pay and rights floors in industries.
The only issue on which Tory voters lagged behind the overall figure was in support for a ban on zero-hours contracts, but it was close – 66 per cent vs 68 per cent.
“It’s a nostalgia trip if you believe slashing taxes at the top and [low] pay for everyone else is going to make Britain better off,” says O’Grady. “Let’s hope she pays some attention to what voters are thinking. What I was really struck by on our poll is that there’s very little difference according to how people vote. Support for workers’ rights is strong across the board. People don’t want them slashed.”
