Cable warns unions over 'winter of discontent'

Business Secretary Vince Cable warned unions not to talk themselves into a "winter of discontent" with threats of industrial action over impending public sector cuts.

Mr Cable insisted that the Government was not seeking confrontation with the unions and said he hoped for a "productive working relationship".

Looking ahead to next week's annual TUC conference, which is expected to see loud calls for resistance to George Osborne's cuts programme, Mr Cable cautioned unions that the public would have little patience for talk of strike action.

And he made clear that he did not believe union bosses wanted a repeat of the clashes with Government seen in 1978/79, when bodies went unburied and rubbish piled up in the streets, paving the way for the anti-union legislation of Margaret Thatcher's administration.

Writing in the New Statesman, Mr Cable dismissed much of the talk of action over cuts as "public posturing", and said the militant rhetoric of RMT general secretary Bob Crow was an "embarrassment" to his colleagues in the union movement.

The Business Secretary said he was "disappointed" by the withdrawal of his invitation to address the Manchester conference, but insisted his door was always open for dialogue with unions.

The withdrawal of Mr Cable's invitation means that next week's gathering will be the first in more than a decade to have no address from a government minister.

The Business Secretary is expected to meet TUC general secretary Brendan Barber and other union officials behind closed doors, in place of the planned speech.

Mr Cable said: "This year's TUC conference will reverberate with anti-Government rhetoric. But I know enough about the way that trade unions operate to understand the difference between public posturing and private pragmatism.

"We in Government are not looking for a confrontation with trade unions and I doubt that they really want one with us.

"Several British public sector unions are threatening action over cuts, though the extreme rhetoric of Bob Crow (who talks of 'fiscal fascism') is almost certainly regarded as an embarrassment by leaders of bigger unions."

Union rhetoric over cuts was fuelled largely by the desire to shore up the labour movement following the general election defeat, Mr Cable claimed.

But he warned that the unions faced a public backlash if their threats were translated into strike action.

Mr Cable wrote: "The more thoughtful unions... know that the public understands the need for fiscal discipline and will react badly to industrial action which hits them.

"They also know that, as in the private sector, there are trade-offs to be made between pay and jobs, between willingness to discuss job flexibility and redundancies."

Mr Cable insisted that there was "a lot of common ground" between the agendas of unions and the Government, pointing to the exemption of low-paid public sector workers from a pay freeze, the hike in capital gains tax and the relinking of pensions to earnings.

"These mitigating factors need to be emphasised before we talk our way into a re-run of the confrontational 1970s," he said. "There are newspapers egging this on, talking up an autumn or winter of discontent. We mustn't go down that road.

"I vividly recall working with the late John Smith when he held my current job in the Callaghan government.

"The Winter of Discontent of 1978/79 did serious damage to the Labour government. But it also undermined public support for the trade union movement and opened the way to the Thatcher reforms of trade unions, which greatly weakened them. This Government is not looking for conflict of that kind.

"I much prefer dialogue to confrontation and my door is open to trade union representatives who wish to talk to me.

"I am disappointed at not being able to speak at the TUC conference, but I don't take it personally and will try to ensure that the incident does not undermine a potentially productive working relationship."