struggles facing difficult conditions
PROFOUND DEVELOPMENTS within the trade union movement have taken place in the last few weeks, in the context of a stepping up of the Tory offensive. The Tories' emerging wave of industrial militancy. They have had some • The TUC has accepted, in effect, the principle of single union deals following events in • Militant workers have been victimised for supporting strike action in defence of the NHS on that it illegal for the National Union of Seamen (NUS) even strike of seafarers in defence of jobs throughout the industry. • At GCHQ in Cheltenham, Mike Grindley, organiser of the remaining trade unionists serveillance by the authorities. • In a new move against basic government has ordered the investigate and report on what it calls 'restrictive trade union practices in the media'. • ITN have announced that they intend to impose sweeping changes in working practices on the unions, involving single person camera crews, remote control cameras and a huge cut back in production assistants.
The collapse of the TUC over the proposed single union deal at Dundee will have a serious long term effect on the trade union movement. TUC leaders have adopted the policies of Eric Hammond and Bill compulsory arbitration clauses
It was a remarkable achievement for the employers. managed to change a longstanding policy of the TUC soon as they had accepted the principle of these deals, TUC leaders rushed off to Detroit to see Ford management and offer them a blank cheque to write in any terms they
Ford management were not the slightest bit interested. This must call into question what their real reason for cancelling all, they had already signed an Union (AEU) which gave them the terms they wanted. was to 'save 450 jobs'! Yet these people have never lifted a finger to save jobs anywhere else. They regularly see jobs lost by the thousand, or even by the tens of thousands, and never as much as make a
450 is half the amount of jobs at stake in the Dover strike, which the TUC (like the unions leaders who make endless statements about Dundee) has not lifted a finger
The TUC now wants to formalise its acceptance of these kinds of deal. TUC leaders which will allow them to "control' their introduction. completely unworkable since negotiated in secret and the already said that they would not accept TUC control.
The theme of accepting single union deals was taken up in even stronger terms at the Scottish TUC in April. STUC general secretary Campbell Cristie put the full blame for the 'loss of the 450 jobs' on the trade union movement and pronounced that it was about time the movement changed its
He went on to advocate that establishment of an STUC vet new investment areas and decide which union is the right one to conclude a single union Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) led the opposition to the deal at Dundee. But all the major unions, including the TGWU, are prepared to back the STUC move.
The AEU leadership, of course, is completely unrepentant over the role they have played in promoting these deals. Bill Jordan has boasted declining for the first time in a
Even before the dust has settled at Dundee, the AEU has identical deal. This time it is involves the new components plant they are planning in
Not surprisingly other employers are quickly cashing in on all this. Jaguar and GKN are now seeking a single unon deal for the joint plant they are proposing in Telford. Before long such deals will become the
The sackings of Steve Forey, Associated Society of Kings Cross, and of the four Manchester, was no less a strategic move by the employers. It was specifically workers. And it was effective.
British Rail management took action against all six ASLEF branch officers at Kings taken to support the day of action. Five of these were given a final warning. They were told they would be immediately sacked if they again 'induced others to breach their contracts of employment'. Steve Forey was sacked there and then.
A ballot on strike action in his defence was lost by 150 votes to 124 — the main factor Workers were told that anyone who took strike action would be sacked. They were warned individual workers who could be held personally responsible for the full loss of trade by
British Rail in the event of a strike.
The courts have also played a key role in the P&O strike at Dover. The NUS was rendered largely ineffective as a national union in February when the executive called off a national strike in support of the striking Isle of Man crews in response to a court injunction.
Seafarers leader Sam McCluskie at first said that he was prepared to defy the law and go to prison. Then he called off the strike and complied with the injunction. decision to ballot for a national strike in support of Dover. This time McCluskie tried to get around the injunctions by arguing that the matter of staffing levels and working conditions was a matter facing the whole industry — which is obviously the case - and therefore it would not be secondary action. This argument was ridiculed in the high court when the judge described it as 'an ingenuous way to get round the law'.
The court granted an injunction to P&O and ordered the withdrawal of the national strike ballot which was by then in progress. It ruled that, since the proposed action would be even to ballot on it - even if never carried out. A suspended sequestration order was issued against the NUS, to be invoked
By the time this order was issued, however, the voting was completed. The court then ruled that it was now illegal even to count the votes! To avoid sequestration the uncounted papers were then locked in the vaults of the NUS' bankers and may never be outrageous interpretations of legislation was introduced in National Graphical Association
Ron Todd (left) and Norman Willis (right) seek TUC 'control' of single union deals: but sections of workers
(NGA) at Warrington and subsequently against the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) during the miners' strike.
With the collapse of any resistance to these laws by the TUC, especially since Wapping, they have become the order of the day, dominating the industrial situation. They are now being interpreted in even harsher ways and new interpretations are being invented to go beyond what we have seen so far.
The new moves the government has made at GCHQ
Carlos Guarita/Reflex Andrew Moore/Reflex adopted a resolution calling for the union to 'change its priorites to deal with the changes facing it within ITV'.
The recent round of disputes has been held back at this stage by some of the latest measures of the government and the employers. But these disputes nevertheless demonstrate the capacity for struggle which is present in the working class as SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 7 May/June 1988 are no less extreme. Union organiser Mike Grindley has worked there for 26 years as a Chinese language expert. He has now been accused of making public classified information and suspended on full pay. (In fact he has said nothing which was not in the public domain anyway.) His positive vetting clearance has been suspended and he has been ordered to keep management constantly informed of his movements — including any nights he may stay away from home!
Another major and are beginning to break through the barriers of new realism a whole.
They show that sections of workers are beginning to break through the employers' offensive and the barriers placed in their way by the new realists at the top of the movement.
The struggles in the car industry, the NHS, and the cross-channel ferries represent the potential for struggles to audacious move by the government is the use of the monopolies commission to investigate 'restrictive practices' in the media. It is a somewhat fantastic move, since it is clear to all that the monopolies commission was never intended for such a purpose. But it is a very serious move just the same.
Collective agreements are now openly and officially disregarded. They are simply to be identified and abolished.
At the same time the government has made it very clear that this will only be the
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develop in broad sectors of the working class
Such struggles encounter very difficult conditions. The TUC and the leaders of the main unions are still moving to the right and new realism is still extending its grip — as it did at the recent conference of the National Union of Teachers (NUT).
It is important that the
UPFRONT first of such investigations.
Coal mining has been mentioned as the next one, since the government is concerned at the power of
NACODS!
This crackdown in the media, which Thatcher has called the last bastion of trade union restrictive practices, is going to be very rapid indeed.
The annual conference of the Association of
Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians (ACTT)
has just voted down a proposal for an all-out strike in defence of jobs and conditions and
NU
STRINGS possibilities represented by the current struggles are maximised. A movement which can achieve a breakthrough must be developed. In these conditions, solidarity is vitally important:
we have to prevent these struggles from becoming isolated. The working class badly needs a victory •
ALAN THORNETT
5
TWO SHARP issues dominated the 54th annual conference of the Association of
Cinematograph Television and allied Technicians (ACTT) on
16-17 April.
First, whether to amalgamate with the
Broadcasting Entertainment
Trades Alliance (BETA).
Second, what to do about the sacking of 234 ACTT members at TV-am.
Amalgamation with BETA saw an unholy alliance between what have traditionally been
'left' and 'right' factions in the union.
Both Alan Sapper, general secretary of the union and prominent 'left', and the newly elected president of the union, arch right-winger Tudor
Gates, argued for amalgamation with BETA on the basis of cost efficiency, avoiding damaging competition between unions for members and circumvention of secondary picketing laws.
They claimed amalgamation would send a signal to the employers that a newly formed, 60,000 strong super-union was "serious'
The debate opened up divisions based on the particular interests of different workers in the union, with some of those who still regard themselves as in a relatively strong position because of their craft skills, strongly opposing amalgamation. More importantly, this debate signalled that the left had collapsed into the 'new realism' of the right.
On Sunday morning, TV-am was discussed. A key role was played by activists from the
TV-am dispute itself. They argued for the line of the national officials, against any form of industrial action being campaigned for to support the
TV-am members. The dividing lines were clearly drawn, for or against a campaign to win industrial action to defend the union.
The emergency resolution from the London tv freelance shop, which itemised the attacks and called for general meetings of all media unions to
'campaign for joint industrial action with these unions to
6 defend their very existence in
On the picket line at TV-am this industry', was defeated with 100 votes for, 177 against and six abstentions.
In the weeks leading up to the conference, national agreements between the ACTT and ITV companies were already being undermined at Tyne-Tees and LWT. On Monday 18, ITN announced 142 redundancies and a host of other changes to make them "competitive'. Thames followed suit just over a week later.
The post-war consensus view of the social function and operation of the film and ty industry is being demolished through the employers' offensive, backed by the Thatcherites. Neither the traditional right nor the left have any effective answers to this attack. A new leadership will have to be built in the new, more difficult but also more volatile conditions that will be standard for film and tv technicians in the 1990s.
Meanwhile the collapse of the long-running strike of journalists sacked by the North London Advertiser group, and the dismal sight of National Union of Journalists (NUJ) members crossing ACTT picket lines to connive at union-busting at TV-am set a grim background to the NUJ's annual delegate meeting in Sheffield - the first for ten years to take place without an