Labour's plan for the unions
S6:100L Since this year's Brighton Conference rubber-stamped the Policy Review document, the Labour Party has become committed to introducing anti-union laws combining aspects of In Place of Strife (which helped defeat the Wilson government in 1969-70) and the Industrial Relations Act, which helped bring down Ted Heath's Tory government in 1974.
The adopted text 'Meet the Challenge Make the Change' sets out Kinnock's - predictably vague -framework for industrial relations legislation under a future Labour government.
Labour calls for the removal of the following aspects of post-1979 Conservative trade union law:
n The right to selectively sack strikers even after proper ballots;
n Encouragement to employers to artificially split companies simply to avoid the effects of a primary dispute;
n The use of ex-parte injuctions and sequestration to prevent/stop disputes.
So far, so good (just about). But they then go on to say, on secondary action, that if workers have a genuine interest in the outcome of a dispute and democratically seck to SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 19, November 1989
WET OUR SLHOOL MEALS Kinnock' bandwagon seems rolling towards a collision with the unfons under a Labour government
JANE WELLS take appropriate sympathetic action in response to those in dispute they should be able to do so within the law." 'Genuine interest', and "appropriate' action, are unfortunately not defined.
Subsequent statements by Labour front-benchers have clarified the position: sympathetic action will not be deemed 'genuine' and 'appropriate' if the media don't like it. Miners will, promise Labour, not be allowed to picket in support of striking nurses, for example. Speculating on other restrictions in the Independent, Employment spokesperson Michael Meacher assured bosses at home and abroad: 'Would it be lawful for workers to refuse to handle imports from South Africa? ... Answer, no.'
The policy review also preserves the right of goverment and the courts to interfere with and prescribe on internal union affairs. 'Union members', says the Policy Review, "should have the right to a secret bal lot on decisions relating to strikes as well as in the election of union executives ... any union member should be able to appeal to an independent tribunal if a ballot has not been held.'
What they left out is most impor tant of all.
Labour's Policy Review fails to tackle the problem of unions' vulnerability to unpredictable and expen-
KHO" sive civil action. Under the present system, unions can still be taken to court by employers even if all the legal procedures (balloting etc) have been observed. All the employers have to prove is that a dispute falls outside the court's own narrow definition of a 'trade dispute' (which the courts can largely make up as they go along), and that union's are guilty of one of number of civil wrongs ('industrial torts'). Common industrial torts include: inducing breach of contract, interference with al business by unlawful means; intimidation and conspiracy. New ones can be added as judges see fit.
Unless unions are made immune to these kinds of action, the courts will always be available for employer's spoiling actions to scupper strikes. Unions did win complete immunity after 1906, but the Tories had severely limited immunity by 1982 (building on the Labour Government's more modest success in shackling the unions in the early 1970s).
All the Labour Party has to say on the subject is the meaningless formula of 'employees must have the right to engage in lawful industrial action without their unions being subject to the sort of court action which can see all their unions' funds sequestrated and the money of union!
"Subsequent statements by
Labour front-benchers have clarified
the position:
sympathetic action will not
be deemed "genuine' and "appropriate if the media don't like it. Miners
will, promise Labour, not be
allowed to
picket in
support of striking nurses,
for example"
Page 13
"The TUC drew an important - if modest -marker for a future Labour Government. Less than four weeks later they stepped back and let Labour cross it" "The unions have their view, but i will be the Labour Prime Minister" -Neil Kinnock Page 14
members frozen.' Sequestration, they say 'is completely unacceptable; and it will not be part of our new constructive framework of industrial relations law.
But without the full and unambiguous restoration immunity, Labour's promises of a 'fairer future' for the unions is not worth the reams of paper it's written on. Labour know that - but are too timid to do anything about it. The unions know it, too.
Led by the TGWU and MSF, the TUC Congress in September tried to
A huge composite was moved by the MSF and supported by other unions; including calls for 'immunity in Tort (civil law) for trade unions'. Supporting the composite in the debate, Bill Morris, Deputy General Secretary of the TGWU, said: "There can be no half-measures; there can be no tinkering. The Tory anti-union laws which sack strikers and drag unions through the courts must go. We need a new framework of Labour law". In the absence of any alternative, even the right-wing ABU and GMB unions voted for the motion. It was carried unaninously.
The reaction by politicians and the press to the TUC's decision was swift and wholly negative. In reality, the motion carried did little more than underline the legal steps that would need to be taken to ensure that Labour's stated aims could be fulfilled. But "immunity" rings alarm bells and Labour's leaders already are nervous about their union links, and especially about being seen to let the unions stand 'above the law'. That was the Tories' immediate line of atKenneth Baker claimed that the
again putting themselves above the law', adding that the 'weasel words' of Labour's Policy Review were now laid bare.
Neil ('I'm dead hard") Kinnock's cringing response was to point out that Labour and the unions are separate bodies with separate policies and that "The unions have their view, but I will be the Labour Prime Minister'. Unnamed •Walworth Road
(read Peter Mandleson) made statements to the same effect.
Michael Meacher tried to argue that the TUC position was compatible with Labour's (much to the delight, goes the rumour, of the Labour leader, who is expected to make use of this to argue that Meacher's lack of judgement/left-wing leanings make him unsuitable for membership of the
SUPPLEMENT Shadow Cabinet). The GMB General AEU President Bill Jordan, once they had caught on to the significance of what had slipped through, condemned their own decision as 'unwise' and
All this, of course, helped pile on the pressure for the Labour Party Conference. Press speculation about a pre-conference stich-up and climbrealised the error of their ways, (again fuelled by Walworth Road), was rife.
Unfortunately the press got it right this time. Stitch-up and climb-down there was. In compositing, the offending 'immunity', originally tabled by the TGWU, disappeared. Emergency resolutions welcoming the TUC decision were ruled out of order; and left-wing motions demanding the removal of all post-1979 laws and the right for unions to write their own rule books were defeated - heavily.
Instead delegates and, most importantly, most of the unions (including the 'left' TGWU and MSF), opted for an anodyne formula which called for a "fair and positive framework of industrial relations legislation' but committed the Party to no specifics.
Bill Jordan of the AEU used the opportunity provided by the debate to hammer home his own brand of new realism which in effect set the tone of the compromise reached on the issue: "Today's party is a party of law makers, not law breakers." It was left to Arthur Scargill to point out the similarities between the proposals in the Policy Review and the Wilson Govemment's In Place of Strife' anti-trade union legislation.
Meanwhile, following talks between Labour and the unions, a joint statement by the TGWU and "clarifying' Labour's proposals. In fact it was intended to confuse the issue and to bury any clarity so deep that it could never be dug out again.
What the statement says is that the status quo on immunities will be retained. Labour would tighten up some of the legal definitions and procedures currently used to trap unions, but they will still be vul nerable to civil action and to (limited) sequestration. The current powers of judges to keep inventing new liabilities for unions and to apply punitive sanctions will be reined in. New specialist courts, including lay representatives, will be set up to adjudicate on these issues, reminiscent of the National Industrial Relations Court set up under Ted Heath's
union-busting legislation.
What the statement means is no commitment to repeal Tory trade union laws; no right to strike (only limited protection under the 'trade dispute definition) and more se questrations (just 'fairer' ones!).
Why are Labour's leaders so touchy on this - just as the trade unions are enjoying an unprecedented popularity following some successes in the summer of discontent, and as Thatcher is increasingly seen to be acting unreasonably and vindictively towards them?
The fact is that Labour's leaders want these laws - deterrents, sanc tions and all. A Labour Government with Kinnock's policies - just like the Wilson and Callaghan administrations before - will need its trade union laws policies are in tatters and it goes back to the working class and asks it to foot the bill for a few measly reforms
wage restraint
How to respond and fight these essentially right-wing policies does pose an awkward question for the likes of Ken Livingstone, and for those who argue that Conference sovereignty has to take precedence, even over socialist principles, whatever the effect those decisions might have on the working class in the real world. In the event of a Labour Goverment, will their watchword then become, not 'wait for the Labour Government", but down and shut up until the next conference - we'll sort it out then?'
The TUC drew an important - if modest - marker for a future Labour Govemment. Less than four weeks later they stepped back and let Labour cross it. It is in the nature of the beast that is a union leader to pronounce a principle one day and to do a deal to dispense with it the next.
Labour's 'democracy' is likely to be the next casualty - as a direct consequence of the U-tum on trade union legislation. Insulating the Labour Party from the organised working class follows logically from protecting Labour in Government from the working class.
The challenge now - to defend conference and the union link, and to reverse Labour's disastrous rightward drift - can only be met by a left prepared not only to organise itself, but to address itself politically and organisationally to the working class as well. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 18, October 1989
against new realism The Socialist Movement has just published the draft policy statement which is to be dis- cussed at the conference for socialists in the unions being organised in Sheffield on Novem-
YOUR IN Graeme Cookson LONDON WEIGHTING "On the one hand, the five years of retreat which followed the miners' strike has now given way to the more confident mood as expressed in this summer's industrial upsurge, with its series of remarkable strike votes expressed in the strength of the strikes that followed. ... But on the other hand, recent struggles show that many of the features which have been so destructive in the past are still present. The London Underground strike in classic fashion ended with a deal agreed over the heads of the rank and file by their leaders. The British Rai. strike could have won much more by getting completely rid of the strings that were attached, and in our view the defeat of the dockers was due, in major part, to the failure of TGWU leaders to adopt a policy of defiance of the Tory anti-union laws".
«We have to reject compromises and rebuild trade union strength on the basis of militant struggle to improve the wages and working conditions of trade union members, and SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 19, November 1989
ITS HEALTH THEIR HANDS In serlous need of solidarity: health workers fight for the whole of the working class