SINCE the Tories came back to power in 1979 they have passed seven Acts designed to attack trade union rights - in particular rights to strike.
Today industrial action is only within the law if it is on the basis of a so-called trade dispute with the workers' own employer, is voted for in a fully postal ballot and notices are given to the employer both before the ballot takes place and before the action starts.
Any so-called secondary action, i.e. sympathy action is unlawful, and this is the case even if the workers involved have the same emnlover but the latter has divided up commercial operations into separate different companies.
(This device was part of the strategy deployed by Rupert Murdoch in his offensive against the print unions at Wapping.)
Picketing within the law has been reduced to a symbolic act which can only take place at the strikers' own workplace.
The determination of the state to continue its anti-union offensive was shown in March by the decision of the Law Lords that employers, in defence of having derecognised a union, hours. can withhold pay rises from any workers who try to maintain their rights secured by collective bargaining.
The implications of all of these legal shackles on trade unions is that if a strike takes place within the law the work- strike taking place. ers involved are generally fighting with both hands tied behind their backs.
There are exceptions where partial or total victories can be won as was the case ings taking place. with the signal workers last summer and the boycott of SATS mounted by the teachers' unions.
Sacking threat sacked workers.
However, the norm is that workers in struggle are isolated and either lose the strike or as has happened in a number of cases, such as the Dover seafarers, the Wapping printers, the workers at Burnsalls and Timex, the workers are sacked during the strike.
The most recent examole of this, and one that exposes fully the working of the new laws on balloting and strike notices, was the sacking last November of bus workers employed by Eastern National in Chelmsford for participating in a one shift strike safe driving The bus workers and their the TGWU, obeyed the letter of the law to the full, and as a result Orbell, the managing director, of Eastern National, was able to lay his plans well in advance of the As part of the Badgerline group, Eastern National was able to bring in scab drivers from all over the country within 24 hours of the sackThis scab labour force was able to keep the buses in Chelmsford going until drivers could be recruited locally and given a crash training course to take the jobs of the all the balloting and strike noAs recent unofficial stop- tice legal paraphernalia their pages by postal workers and strike is likely to be more efby 900 bus workers in Liver- fective - and the risk of getpool have shown, if workers ting sacked is a lot lower. take action spontaneously, Defiance i.e. without any advance notice, the employer will have Defiance of the law is a no chance to do what Orbell central part of trade union tradid and other employers such dition. It is only just over 20 as P&O have done in the past. years since mass defiance of Workers taking strike ac- the Industrial Relations Act tion can be sacked if they act both defeated the law and within the law or in defiance helped to bring down the of it. However, somewhat Heath government. ironically perhaps, if they It is well over time for strike without going through these traditions to be revived Sign of our times: anti-union laws aim to shackle fight for union rights or against low pay and the lessons relearnt. Industrial action within the law - at least when the full weight of the law and institutions of the state such as the police are there to ensure effective industrial action cannot take place - is often doomed to failure and exposes workers involved to the risk of dismissal.
There must be a real fight within and across all unions for official backing for sympathetic action and picketing in defiance of the law once a group of workers go on strike.
Part and parcel of this fight, as the Chelmsford struggle has shown albeit negatively, is often for workers to strike first and then demand union support. Indeed if such sympathetic action and picketing can be secured the Chelmsford bus workers themselves can still win their just fight for reinstatement. Moreover, defiance of the Tory laws now will make it far more difficult for a Blair led Labour government to keep those laws in place. Saturday July 15% 10.30am - 5.00pm South Camden Community School Charrington St London NW1 (botwoon Euston & Kings Cross BR)