CorpComms Magazine

Trade unions are donning their battle armour for an immediate march into full-scale war against the Coalition's spending cuts. But adopting a fighting tone is easy. The real challenge will be to gain enough widespread support before any battle is fought to force a government rethink and that will require winning the hearts and minds of the general public. And, for all the fighting talk, it is not clear that they are succeeding in that task.

Yet, the odds should be in their favour. A recent YouGov poll for The Sun found that, while 41 per cent of people perceive the government's moves as good for the economy, 41 per cent say they are bad with 18 per cent unsure. 'Unions should be the voice of very real public concern,' says Chris North, client partner at Further Creative. 'They have a fair amount of clout despite low union membership and there is a huge amount of concern about job losses. There's a big opportunity for unions to be heard.'

The problem for the unions is that their reputation is somewhat tarnished. 'Many public sector employees whose futures are threatened will, I assume, be largely supportive of the co-ordinated industrial action that is talked about. Those unaffected - and there's far more who believe they fall into this category - will continue to share the same perceptions they have of trade unions: quarrelsome, obsolete and essentially self-serving,' says Peter Roberts, senior associate director, issues and crisis, Hill and Knowlton.

Andrew Caesar-Gordon, managing director of media training company Electric Airways takes a similar view, saying that the trade union 'narrative' has failed to shake off the image of 1979 - most strikingly and repeatedly portrayed by images of bins overladen with uncollected rubbish and tales of unburied bodies.

It is largely forgotten that the gravediggers' strike actually only lasted two weeks. What is more important is that it has remained in the media psyche, to be replayed endlessly in the years since. And that media shaping of public perception continues today. There is little doubt that, in recent weeks, the more vocal and inflammatory union comments have hit the newsstands - precisely because the media seeks out hard-hitting headlines. 'The press like people like Bob Crow [general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union] because he makes good copy. He can easily get any coverage he wants,' says Adrian Day, an independent brand consultant at Vermillion Advisers.

Day thinks that people are hostile to unions when they think their actions are selfish. 'Just look at some of the comments in the Evening Standard when the RMT has a strike,' he adds. In addition, he says that a negative perception has arisen because the more extreme views have a disproportionate share of voice. 'The public don't hear some of the more moderate opinion,' he says. Or as Caesar-Gordon puts it: 'The loudest kid in the playground is always the one that gets heard.'

Caesar-Gordon also thinks that one of the reasons why more militant union leaders are always covered is because it is easy for journalists to default to them. 'The media has changed over the past 20 years so there are very few specialist correspondents left who would have a deeper understanding of industrial issues,' he says. 'Without that, journalists default to what they believe their audiences understand trade unions to be - that is, often striking at the first opportunity.'

Roberts agrees that the long-standing messages behind the union movement have been forgotten. 'Ultimately, the unions stand for a laudable aim, which is to make the workplace a better place. This central goal and the impressive accomplishments over the years, including equal pay, statutory redundancy pay and the national minimum wage need to be reframed.' He argues that perception problems have arisen for two reasons. The more combative trade union leaders tend to gain more media coverage, which skews the overall perception of the group, while the economic boom prior to recession meant that there was less call for trade union involvement, resulting in their influence being overlooked.

Some of the problems are of the unions' own making. Three years ago, Day helped to create a brand for Unite, the two million strong union carved from the merger of Amicus and the Transport and General Workers' Union (T&G). At the time, there was an acknowledgement that the union's role had changed from the days of strikes. 'They'd stand up for their people when needed but it was softer. It was about helping members from the cradle to the grave,' says Day. A brief conversation with Unite confirmed this view, with a press officer seemingly keen to convey the broader message that the union does valuable work within the community, works hard to engage the public and win grassroots support, and doesn't want to just focus on strikes.

Move forward three years and Unite is poised to elect a new general secretary - Len McCluskey - more commonly known as 'Red Len'. On 19 October, when the union lobbied Parliament, McCluskey was reported as saying: 'We will fight the cuts with every bone in our bodies. Our battle starts today for public sector workers and private sector workers, to protect the poor and the vulnerable.' If he sounds militant, it's because he is. In comments to the New Statesman in September, McCluskey talked about unions and Labour MPs joining forces to reclaim the party 'right up from the roots' - the kind of sentiment that new leader Ed Miliband is keen to distance himself from. As for gaining widespread public support, it's unclear whether McCluskey actually cares. 'If getting involved in a fight such as BA means I am vilified in the press, that doesn't bother me. The only thing I'm interested in is what my members think of me,' he said.

His appointment will mean the moderates face an even bigger struggle against rapidly polarising opinion. But there might still be ways in which they can manage the situation to their advantage. 'It would appear that the unions are managing the process along traditional lines - antagonistic language and public demonstrations,' says Roberts. 'Both generate coverage, but a more nuanced campaign of understanding and persuasion needs to be happening.' He thinks that the time is ripe for trade unions to seize the agenda and instigate a dialogue with affected employees. 'Such conversations need to revive the movement's original thinking, which is about giving voice to the so-called ordinary employee and improving their working conditions,' he says.

Caesar-Gordon takes a similar view, arguing that it's important that unions agree a narrative that synchronises concerns of union members with the broader public. 'They shouldn't be saying, We are fighting the public sector cuts because our members are going to suffer. They should be saying, Because so many people rely on public services, which are delivered by our members, we understand the pain those cuts will cause and so are fighting them. It's about identifying your interests with those of your audience,' he says.

Warwick Partington, managing director of MTM Communication Skills Training, believes union leaders need to keep their unions united - something they can only do if their messages are relevant, real and valid for their members and the wider public alike. 'The one thing that particularly broadcast media always needs is examples and if the unions can provide compelling examples of how the cuts are negatively affecting their members and focus on the human story rather than the rhetoric, they should be able to capture the media and the public's imaginations,' says Partington. Roberts also thinks this can be achieved by recognising the importance of non-traditional platforms, including community building via 'imaginative and targeted social networking campaigns', or video sharing sites such as YouTube.

The unions must win a PR campaign - to restore the positive message of union activity, against a public and media perception that is grounded in obstructive and strike-obsessed union behaviour. This is a huge challenge, as it is the hard-line militants that are gaining voice and media coverage. Perhaps the problem remains that, while the unions are perceived collectively, in reality they comprise a whole range of different groups and views.

Day believes unions need to come to some kind of collective agreement as to their purpose and message. 'Conversations should be going on about the role of the unions over the next five years - and, if there is a brand called 'union', what is it? I think the TUC did a lot to manage the brand but my sense is that that has fallen away in recent years - at least in the public eye,' he says. That might explain the current confusion. Union leaders are being taken to represent the wider movement, regardless of how incendiary their message or how out of keeping it might be with the majority of union members' views. For example, Crow heads up the relatively small RMT union, with 80,000 members, but he is often used by the media as the movement's figurehead. Until unions address this problem, they run the risk of effectively being hijacked by the loudest voices. If the spending cuts are as ruinous as they promise, then perhaps it will not matter and they still win support. But there is always a risk that the public will blame the unions for the disaster because they made a bad situation worse by bringing the country to a halt.

With the spending cuts announced and characters like McCluskey coming to the fore, it may already be too late for the moderate voice. But if the unions have drawn their battle lines - without first winning hearts and minds - then the government may already have cause to celebrate.

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