The political constitution of labour from Donovan to Blair

• Published date: 01 May 2020
• Date: 01 May 2020
• Author: Jon Cruddas
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12290

The political constitution of labour from

Donovan to Blair

Jon Cruddas

ABSTRACT

This article looks at changing patterns of labour regulation over the last 50 years ago.

We begin with the contribution of the ‘Oxford School’within industrial relations

analysis and its influence on the Donovan Royal Commission. We then discuss the ar-

chitecture of the British corporate state and the approach of successive Conservative

administrations between 1979 and 1997. Next, we consider labour market analysis

and interventions under New Labour alongside emerging European influences and

rights-based models of justice. We conclude with some final comments regarding

contemporary labour market thinking.

1 INTRODUCTION

There is a genuine lack of understanding of the modern world of work amongst the

political and policy technocracy in and around Westminster. This extends beyond

the class composition of MPs. It is reflected in the tendency over recent years for pol-

icy makers to discuss labour market statistics rather than the character of the labour

performed. However, things might be changing.

The publication of James Bloodworth’s (2019) popular book Hired has placed into

the public domain a powerful account of the realities of modern employment prac-

tices. Bloodworth informs us of the nature of employment in places often described

as ‘left behind’, based on the author’s experience of working in a modern warehouse,

in a call centre, as a care worker and as an Uber driver where he experiences insecu-

rity, ruthless discipline, surveillance, atomisation, underpayment and underemploy-

ment. Yet his study is also uplifting in the way it gives voice to the experiences of

his co-workers while also detailing the collapsing esteem offered by much modern

work. Through these revelations, the book addresses the changing character of con-

temporary capitalism by exposing how many employers, unscrupulousness agencies

and landlords, amongst others, compete to drain dignity from the lives of our fellow

citizens.

This research speaks to a modern, often ignored, sense of grievance and consequent

humiliation conditioned by the work people do and the lives they live—when

compared with the ones they aspire to, indeed were promised, by generations of

politicians. It reveals challenging employment and living conditions that shape how

people see their relationships, bodies, diets and indeed other humans—chief amongst

❒Jon Cruddas, MP for Dagenham and Rainham, House of Commons, Westminster, London, UK.

Correspondence should be addressed to Jon Cruddas, MP for Dagenham and Rainham, House of

Commons,Westminster, London, SW1A 0AA, UK.

Email: jon.cruddas.mp@parliament.uk

Industrial Relations Journal 51:3, 225–241

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2020 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

them politicians and immigrants. This bends into an anguish that quietly resides

within parts of the country.

The concern that Bloodworth registers is not with work in and of itself. His inter-

views reveal that meaningful work can offer a sense of dignity, solidarity and identity.

The problem he pinpoints is the degradation of work today, the shifting ways by which

labour is performed in modern society. Bloodworth reminds us that work is a

contested, deeply political subject.

Hired is one of a number of significant interventions in an emerging debate around

the character of work today. The workplace insecurity concerns expressed by Theresa

May in her ‘burning injustices’speech on entering Downing Street in July 2016 is an-

other contribution. As is the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices whose final

report suggested that ‘all work in the UK should be fair and decent with realistic

scope for development and fulfilment’. Widespread interest in the future of work

can also be identified given technological change and automation and a wide variety

of empirical estimates regarding their effects on the future demand for labour. This

has also informed fashionable debate regarding ‘postcapitalism’and the case for

Universal Basic Income compared with the merits of more traditional job guarantee

programmes, including a Green New Deal.

Yet such assertions of dramatic disruption in patterns of employment rest uneasily

with policy concerns regarding our comparative economic weakness and the presence

of a productivity ‘puzzle’. This corrective, drawing on labour market statistics, once

again directs attention to what we do and do not know about the modern organisa-

tion of production. More generally, there appears a renewed interest in how identities

based on work are being transformed in an age for many characterised by precarious-

ness, declining material rewards, flat lining social mobility, frequent job changes and

meaningless labour.

1

There is also political interest in work regulation and Brexit. Many on the political

left fear a bonfire of employment protections whereas on the right contributors

anticipate renewed freedom from over regulation and enhanced labour flexibility

and growth.

We might conclude that employment relations have recaptured political attention.

This suggests that we account for why political attention had been in decline. For

example, last year, it was hardly remarked upon that 50 years had passed since the

publication of the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers Associations

(the Donovan Commission). In 1968, the organisation of work was central to political

deliberation regarding our comparative economic position. Until recently, debate

regarding Britain’s postwar economic performance tended to focus on the role and

status of labour—and a specific‘labour interest’. So what accounts for this fluctuating

political attention?

There is a wider initial point to be made. Historically, under capitalist society, the

forms by which labour is understood as an economic and political category, together

with how it is deployed, regulated and represented underpinned alternative ap-

proaches to how society itself should be organised, competing theories of economic

and social justice. Recently, this has become a neglected conversation. Therefore, it

1

According to the TUC, the gig economy has doubled in size over the past threeyears and now accounts for

4.7 million workers, employing one in ten working age adults (TUC, 2019).

226 Jon Cruddas

© 2020 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd