On the dangers of ballot fatigue

I’ve previously written about the dangers of unions approaching industrial disputes with a “long haul” mentality.

With the legal provision forcing unions to renew their statutory strike mandate every six months, one of the biggest of these dangers in long-running disputes is ballot fatigue.

Several “long haul” disputes are currently running in the UK that have involved significant national re-ballots — in post, on the railways, and in the NHS. Many of the unions involved have successfully renewed strike mandates, in some cases — as with the CWU — remarkably achieving a bigger mandate six months into their dispute than they had initially. This is no mean feat, particularly given the other legal hurdle that forces unions to run postal ballots for industrial action. The achievements of these unions, reps, and activists in meeting the threshold should be acknowledged and celebrated.

There is however a growing danger of trade unionism in the UK becoming a never-ending exercise in “getting the vote out.” This is, of course, a deliberate effect of the anti-union laws, and raises serious questions for union members.

The main obvious downside is that a dispute can end if a union fails to meet the threshold in a re-ballot. Realistically, for example, if the RCN fails to meet the 50% threshold in its aggregated re-ballot then the NHS pay dispute for this year will be effectively over. Unions will always make noises about how “the fight goes on” but the reality is that if you go from a position where you can exercise withdrawal of labour against an employer to a position where you can’t, then you’re probably running out of road. If the threshold is met, it raises the matter of how the union will run the dispute to win it — or else have to do it all again in six months time.

Disaggregated balloting, whereby a union engaged in a national disputes runs separate ballots against each employer in the hope of clearing the threshold in at least some workplaces, has enabled unions with uneven strength across a sector to at least take some action. However, it also leads to (perfectly reasonable and necessary) calls for re-ballots in workplaces that fall short. This then becomes a tactical exercise in assessing relative strength, which of course consumes the time and resources of the union.

It is now common practice across the movement to portray holding a successful ballot as a “win” in itself. See for example the CWU’s slogan during the re-ballot of “Win the ballot, win the dispute.” In some cases winning a ballot is even seen as a sort of defiance of the anti-union laws, when in reality of course it is the exact opposite of this — it is a meticulous exercise in by-the-letter adherence to the laws.

But winning a ballot doesn’t win a dispute. CWU members are currently voting on a deal not massively dissimilar to one they were offered before their re-ballot. The rail dispute drags on across the train operating companies months after successful re-ballots by the RMT and ASLEF.

In some cases the need to meet thresholds and re-ballot has probably played a role, up to a point, in reinvigorating union organisation on the ground, re-instilling positive habits like face-to-face conversations, recruitment drives, and the distribution of trade union literature in workplaces.

However, the danger of ballot fatigue threatens to overwhelm the — still relatively small — layer of active union membership. Reps and activists, and officers too, shouldn’t have to spend most of their time and energy on “get out the vote” activity. The failure to meet thresholds in a re-ballot risks widespread demoralisation, especially as it usually comes after an upsurge in activity when it feels like things are moving in the right direction. For the more conservative and do-nothing elements in the movement, ballot fatigue is a gift as it provides them with another excuse to knock disputes on the head when the opportunity arises. The idea that members are “fed up of being balloted” has already been raised by these elements in some of the current national disputes.

This again underlines the necessity of approaching disputes with a view to winning them in as short a time-frame as possible.

Until recently, strikes were most commonly one-day actions, often called with the objective of getting the employer around a negotiating table or as a bargaining chip to call off in exchange for negotiations. They often felt almost ritualistic or an exercise in going through the motions. If we’re not careful, balloting will start to feel the same. There have been positive moves towards more effective action during the current strike wave — indefinite action in some cases — but many disputes are still being run on the basis of long periods of quiet punctuated by short instances of industrial action.

Of course there is still a place for the one-day strike, for example as an exercise in building confidence at employers where trade unionism is new and particularly difficult. But we must surely put the era of 24 and 48 hour strikes among well organised, high density, and confident workforces behind us. The legal requirement to re-ballot ever six months means that, if a union has a “long haul, short strikes” mentality, the employer knows exactly to what timescale the union is working and is well placed to run down the clock. No union, however well organised, will be able to endlessly win re-ballots for an indefinite period of time without concrete gains to show to the membership.

While this might place some unions in a sort of quasi-syndicalist state of semi-permanent dispute with the bosses, it is no substitute for a winning strategy. Rather than adhering to the sad tradition of bitty here-and-there strikes, unions through their relevant lay committees should approach their six-month mandate as a maximum period within which the dispute must be won — this entails having a programme of sustained and escalating action ready right out of the gate.

Politically, the New Deal for Working People, were it to be actually implemented by an incoming Labour government, would ostensibly make it easier to meet thresholds by introducing electronic balloting — a long overdue measure that should be supported — but this is no substitute for a winning strategy either. As effective trade unionism is placed more and more outside the law, of course we need to lobby and campaign for the repeal of anti-strike legislation. But in the meantime we cannot allow this legislation to throttle our disputes by allowing employers to simply wait things out.

Trade unionists who are engaged in “long haul, short strike” disputes should be asking serious questions about their union’s strategy, and debate and develop the most effective tactics to win in their respective industries.