HC Deb 31 March 1969 vol 781 cc2-3
2. Mr. Ridley

asked the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity if she will legislate to bring in a scheme whereby each group of workers in an industry or company may choose which union is to represent them by means of a secret ballot.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity (Mr. Roy Hattersley)

No, Sir. The problems involved in inter-union disputes in Britain are often too complex to be settled satisfactorily in this way.

Mr. Ridley

Will the Minister think again about this? Why is it that the exercise of democracy cannot be extended to workers in choosing their union which is to represent them, and would not this have been of great help in the dispute in the steel industry recently?

Mr. Hattersley

I am certainly making no comment on the steel industry dispute. I can accept that there may be occasions on which a ballot can be helpful as to which is the appropriate union for recognition. The flexible proposals outlined by my right hon. Friend in the White Paper offer that solution, and many others, and I am sure that that flexible approach is the proper approach.

Mr. Manuel

Is my hon. Friend aware that when a worker joins any particular union within an industry he expects that union to represent him?

Mr. Hattersley

I am aware of that, and I am also aware of the problems which it sometimes involves.

Mr. R. Carr

If we are talking, as we are rightly talking increasingly, about the need to encourage industrial democracy, does the hon. Gentleman not think it basic to democracy in industry that people should have the right to decide for themselves which union is to represent them?

Mr. Hattersley

That is a right which, when expressed in those general terms, of course is unexceptionable, but that is not the sort of right offered by the right hon. Gentleman's policy statement, which would limit that right very severely.