Busted

British employers are increasingly hiring US-style consultants to persuade workers not to join trade unions, the TUC warned today.

Brendan Barber, the TUC general secretary, said scare tactics similar to those employed in the US were being used to demonise trade unions and keep workplaces union-free.

The union organisation, one of Britain's largest, has joined forces with its US equivalent, the AFL-CIO, to highlight the "threat" to the rights of British workers posed by consultants' "intimidating" tactics.

Barber said: "The underhand tactics employed in the shadowy world of the union-busting consultant are proving increasingly attractive to a handful of employers in the UK.

"This is a US export that UK workplaces could well do without. Thankfully, the activities of the union busters are still small scale here compared with the influence they exercise in the States, but it's important that we do all we can to stop them dead in their tracks."

The warning coincides with a report written for the TUC by Dr John Logan of the London School of Economics, which says "union-busting" consultants have been so successful in the US that only 7.5% of the private sector workforce are members of a union.

Though UK laws are stricter on employers that violate workers' rights, the report warns that the activities of such consultants are likely to be more widespread than most unions realise.

Stewart Acuff, the AFL-CIO's director of organising, said US unions would work with the TUC to prevent anti-union consultants from expanding into the UK.

"The US's $4bn [£2bn] union busting industry is by far our worst export," he said. "As the industry grows in the UK, it makes sense that we band together to fight these highly paid, morally bankrupt agents of corporate greed.

"Our fundamental source of power is workers united and in motion."

The report contains examples of the affect union avoidance consultants such as the Burke Group (TBG) are already having in UK workplaces.

It claims that Kettle Chips, owned by the private equity firm Lion Capital, suffered a public backlash after hiring TBG to help persuade workers – many of them immigrants – to vote by 206 to 93 not to join Unite, Britain's biggest union.

TBG was also hired by the budget airline FlyBe in 2006 when 400 cabin crew won the right to be represented by Unite.

David Burke, founder and chief executive of TBG, told the Financial Times: "I am very comfortable about what we do. It is important that employees, when deciding whether to accept collective representation, should have all the information possible on the implications of that decision – and not just from the trade union side."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/feb/12/tradeunions?gusrc=rss&feed=uknews