Industrial action 'real risk' under Tories - Brendan Barber

Brendan Barber says Conservatives are in 'wrong place on the economy'

Britain faces "very real risks" of widespread industrial action later this year, especially if the Conservatives win the general election and start making big public spending cuts, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber has warned.
He said the Tories were "in the wrong place on the economy and on employment" but poured scorn on any idea of a politically-motivated "spring of discontent" following on from the current air and rail disputes.

Barber insisted there was link between the present strikes and threats of strikes and run-up to the election but told the Times that labour relations could worsen if the public sector bore the brunt of cuts.

Barber said: "If there are serious cuts in public spending and in vital public services, then there are very real risks of some very difficult disputes. Whoever wins the next general election will have to think very carefully before they reach for the axe and what that will mean not only for pay and living standards but for the quality of services that the public sector delivers."
Barber did not think either of the present transport disputes were politically-motivated: "This 'spring of discontent' label is simply a lazy cliché," he said. "This is not comparable to 1979. Nothing like it. The number of days lost in 2009 to industrial action is nowhere near."

He said that 455,000 working days were lost to industrial action last year, compared with the 27m lost during the 1984 miners' strikes and the 29m lost during the 1979 Winter of Discontent.

"It is an accident that the disputes that we have are happening now at the same time", Barber told the newspaper. "The BA issue has come to a head now only because of the legal action [the injunction BA won at Christmas that prevented industrial action then] and the failure to resolve the issue in the three or four months since.

"There is no linkage between the disputes and the pre-election period. There is no great political significance here." But Barber also said: "For me, the Conservative party is in the wrong place on the economy and on employment. There are huge worries about the policy stances of a potential Conservative government. A sustainable recovery is at risk if there was a Conservative government committed to deep cuts. That is potentially a big threat.

"There is a worry if a Tory government takes an antagonistic line to the trade union movement that would increase the risks of real clashes."