Mandelson, the Labour right & rights at work
Peter Mandelson was sacked as UK Ambassador in Washington this week, but he was there in the first place at least partly because of his long running role in right-wing Labour politics. He was centrally involved in Progress, a Labour right organisation, and is of course on record as being involved in the efforts to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. Before that however in the first Blair Government he was a central figure in New Labour politics, one part of which was to water down plans to increase rights at work which had been part of the 1997 Labour Manifesto.
A reminder of his efforts is below but there is irony in that as Mandelson was sacked for a third time, the person responsible for promoting the current workers right legislation in Parliament, Angela Rayner, was also sacked, as Starmer moved his Cabinet yet further to the right.
As Marxists tend to say, everything is connected to everything else
An interesting insight into what he was doing as a Minister in the early post-May 1997 period can be found in official Government papers available at the National Archives
The 1997 Labour Government headed by Blair promised to address the years of Tory anti-union laws by reinstating what it claimed would be a level playing field at work. The bigger issue was the introduction of a National Minimum Wage. This was opposed by many business interests on the basis that it could not be afforded, (a strong echo is to be found in 2025) would not work and so on. However it was implemented and remains in force, albeit many would argue it should be higher.
The second was a Parliamentary Act on Employment Relations. Its notable that this did not become law until July 1999. It was not seen as a priority and there was a fair bit of time spent listening to business about it. It did not repeal any Tory anti-union law but instead gave legal force to trade union recognition and representation. It was a step forward from the Thatcher years but a very modest one.
Cabinet Papers available at the National Archives give an indication to what had been going on.
In the autumn of 1997 there is a file note of what is described as a ‘long and fractious discussion’ between Tony Blair and John Prescott on Fairness at Work. Prescott said that changes had been bought as a package by the TUC and if changes were planned this would need to be agreed by the Cabinet. Blair responded that the changes were practical ones because of what he claimed were genuine problems in how they would work. Blair wanted to allow a right of appeal to the measure, eventually implemented, which would mean that if 50% of workers voted for union recognition it would be automatically given. Prescott again argued that he did not think what the TUC had put forward was up for negotiation.
Employment rights were not part of Prescott’s Ministerial brief and the matter does not appear again until we find a file note from Peter Mandelson on 9th March 1998. It says ‘Union Recognition. Moving in the direction of the CBI. Ideal response for the TUC to be grumpy but not refuse to co-operate’.
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