As the legendary political thinker Zsa Zsa Gabor once put it: “Macho does not prove mucho.” Faced with the most disruptive combination of industrial action in essential services in decades, the first instinct of Rishi Sunak and his cabinet was to put on muscle suits, beat their silicone chests and declare that they would tough it out. Ministers refused to come to the negotiating table with the unions while dismissing every pay claim as unaffordable. They adopted this uncompromising posture in the belief that time would be their ally and the enemy of those withdrawing their labour in protest at the squeeze on the real value of their incomes.
One of the cabinet’s key assumptions was that public sympathy for strikers would ebb as people began to suffer the consequences. The other calculation among ministers was that the resolve of strikers would fray. Infused with an archaic nostalgia for the epic battles waged between the Thatcher government and trade unions in the 1980s, a lot of Tories even thought that widespread industrial unrest would rebound to their party’s advantage.
To their consternation, none of these assumptions has proved correct. Strikes are costly for strikers. They drain union funds and their members are hurt in their pay packets, but 2023 is beginning with an escalating, not a declining, number of planned days of action by an expanding range of workers. Intransigence by the government has not weakened the resolve of aggrieved workers; it has increased their determination to express their anger about their pay and conditions.
Ministers also misread the temper of the country. Public opinion has not been shifting in the direction the government anticipated. The Opinium poll we publish today indicates that support for NHS staff, especially for the nurses striking for the first time in the history of the Royal College of Nursing, remains high. When asked what they think overall about the public sector strikes, those voters who hold the government responsible outnumber those who blame the unions.
Ministers are losing the competition to look like the “reasonable” side of the argument. Representatives of health workers say that their grievances are not just about the degradation to the real value of their pay since 2010, but also the decayed and demoralised condition of the NHS. That chimes with the public’s experience of an unravelling health service that is struggling to deliver satisfactory levels of care on any day, not just strike days.
I have always thought it a no-brainer that a highly unpopular Tory government would never prevail in a tug-of-war for public sympathy with nurses. That’s a battle Mrs Thatcher never provoked. That’s a contest this government cannot hope to win. Of all the disputes, this is the one that ministers are the most desperate to end. “Clearly, that’s the one to settle first,” says one former Tory cabinet minister. “Trouble is, whatever you pay them, you will end up paying everyone else.” Ministers would probably do a deal with the RCN tomorrow were it not for the fear in the Treasury and Number 10 that this would embolden other workers in the health service and elsewhere in the public sector to press their claims harder and for longer.
There have been some indications over the past few days that the government is beginning to recalibrate its approach. Mr Sunak switched to a more conciliatory looking tack when he invited union leaders for talks with the cabinet, though it was clumsily patronising to say he wanted a “grown-up” conversation. Mark Harper, the transport secretary, has signed off on a new offer from the rail operators to train drivers. Steve Barclay, the health secretary, and Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, were among ministers meeting union leaders in their respective sectors. Some involved came away saying they had been a waste of time, but that they happened at all was an advance on Number 10’s erstwhile position that ministers would not engage in any negotiations, an idea they earlier dismissed as a return to the days of “beer and sandwiches”.
The government is also softening its line that diverging from the outdated recommendations of the pay review body is not an option. There are tentative signs that ministers acknowledge that these disputes won’t be resolved unless they make some concessions. Suggestions of how pay offers might be enhanced have begun to float out of departments.
Yet the government is still sending mixed messages about whether it wants to jaw-jaw with its employees or declare war-war on them. Ministers flourish an olive branch in one hand while brandishing a crude club in the other. In the same week that the government invited unions to talks, it infuriated them by launching anti-strike legislation. This will be debated in the Commons on Monday. Expect turbulent scenes. In the name of guaranteeing “minimum service levels” on strike days by essential workers, including nurses, ambulance staff and firefighters, this would force people to work or face the sack. Even cheerleaders for this rushed legislation acknowledge that its application would be bedevilled with difficulties. “How the fuck do you determine the minimum service level?” asks one veteran Tory. “Thatcher would never have done this without thinking about it for at least a year.” An impact assessment by the Department for Transport concluded that this law could push unions into striking more frequently and prompt them to take more action short of a strike.
Britain already has some exceptionally tough laws governing strikes. The current wave of disputes demonstrates that you can’t legislate workers into submission when they become very discontented. The NHS unions have come up with the smart riposte that the government should be guaranteeing minimum staffing levels at all times, so that people are no longer waiting, and sometimes dying, in agony for lack of an ambulance or capacity in A&E. Another anti-strike law will not solve the acute staffing shortages – there were more than 130,000 vacant NHS posts at the last count – it is more likely to make them even worse.
Given the resistance this legislation will face in the House of Lords and the challenges that will be mounted in the courts, its only impact on the present wave of strikes will be to inject further poison into relations between the government and its employees. Both the most militant and the most moderate unions have united in condemnation. Sir Keir Starmer, who has been highly wary of associating his party with the strikes, says Labour will oppose this law and a government led by him would repeal it. This has the reek of performative legislation designed to make Mr Sunak look tough in the eyes of Conservative MPs and members. It is more macho posturing that will do nothing to bring the disputes to an equitable and swift conclusion.
The strikes that enter folklore are those in which one side triumphed and the other was crushed. But most industrial disputes aren’t decided that way. They end with a compromise in which the workers don’t get all that they demanded and the employer pays more than they initially claimed was affordable. Most union leaders do not expect to get their headline demands in full. Pat Cullen, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has suggested that her members would be prepared to settle for around half of their opening bid. It is also clear that ministers will not resolve these disputes without doing some compromising. The health secretary now privately concedes that the government will have to improve the pay offer to NHS staff.
There are a lot of reasons why Mr Sunak ought to want to end this winter of discontent before it turns into a spring of continuing misery. He seeks to sell himself on competence, but cannot do that as long as he is presiding over so much social strife. He has promised to address the crisis in the NHS, but cannot hope to do so until the government has come to terms with its workforce. Boris Johnson’s gang see an opportunity for that seedy charlatan to make a comeback if there is a Tory meltdown in May’s local elections, an outcome more likely if essential services are still being crippled in the spring.
The macho strategy has failed the prime minister. Sooner or later, the government will have to cut some deals. For the country’s sake and his own, Mr Sunak would be best advised to do it sooner rather than later.
Andrew Rawnsley is Chief Political Commentator of the Observer
