The brothers are back — and they’re setting the agenda

Even allowing for retro-chic, there were some things from the 1970s that most of us assumed were never coming back: cheese-and-wine parties, lime-green bathroom suites, and trade unions setting industrial policy. The little cubes of cheese and the green baths look safely forgotten. But the brothers? They’re back.

In the past few months, trade unions have been making the running on issues ranging from the role of private equity to the responsibility of manufacturers to keep their factories in Britain. Led mainly by the GMB and the Transport & General Workers, the unions have developed a stunt-happy, web-friendly, celebrity-savvy campaigning style that has left the overpaid suits of City PR looking tired and lazy by comparison.

Insofar as Britain has a public debate on industrial issues, its terms are now being set largely by the unions. That may not be a good thing — most of their arguments are either bogus or economically illiterate — but it is a reality that big business has to come to terms with. Add in the fact that the unions will play a pivotal role in selecting the next prime minister — or at least in arranging his coronation — and it’s clear they are now playing a stronger hand than at any time in the past two decades. ‘The City has had everything its own way for a long time, but now people are asking harder questions,’ said Paul Maloney, senior organiser of the GMB.

So far, two companies that have felt the lash of trade-union leather on their backs are the fashion house Burberry and the private equity giant Permira. Last year, Burberry decided to close its polo-shirt factory in the Welsh town of Treorchy, with the loss of several hundred jobs. The company probably expected little reaction. They’d just make the shirts in China; no one would notice.