Redundancies are turning into a avalanche as the recession bites. But, argues ALAN THORNETT, resistance is hamstrung by capitulation to the anti-union laws. This month's 'Unshackle the conference is an opportunity to begin the The trade union movement is going through its worst period for many* years. Both the recession and an intensified employers' offensive are creating massive job losses throughout industry. Rationalisation schemes in service industries such as British Telecom, the Post Office and London Underground are threatening thousands of sackings.
Capitulation The government has used the capitulation of local councils to the poll tax to decimate jobs and local services. Despite the Gulf war, arms manufacturers such as Rail union leader Jimmy Knapp Vickers and British faces Underground pressure Aerospace are facing huge strikes in defence of jobs cutbacks because of unand against the employers planned 'defence' cuts with offensive of the early and no switch to civil producmid-'80s are absent, Even tion. after the defeat of the Job losses on this scale miners' print are not new - they occurred workers and the seafarers in the early 1980s. What is fought to defend their jobs. new is the almost complete So what has changed? It absence of resistance by the is all too obvious. There unions. While there is resishave been too many defeats. tance on the Underground 'New realism', which enand workers have marched sured those defeats, has through London against tightened its grip on the redundancies, the huge unions to a stranglehold.
OFFICIAL PICKET The anti-union laws make unofficial action is very difficult and likely to result in victimisation. It is a deadly combination. In order to take strike action the rank and file need more support from the top, and the existence of new realism ensures they don't get it:
Hard road It is a hard road back from this situation, and involves a struggle both against new realism and the anti-union laws. It is not impossible far from it. The spectacular victory of mass non-payment against the poll tax shows that a law repeatedly disregarded loses its authority and can be destroyed.
That has been the problem with the anti-union laws. Unlike the millions who refused to pay the poll tax, the TUC has insisted right from its betrayal of the NUJ in 1983 at Warrington that the Tory laws must be obeyed. This had allowed Engineering workers fighting for shorter hours cial structures. The labour and union leaders been opposed to fighting the Tories right from 1979, and they were no different in this case. The TUC insisted that people pay their poll tax right from the start. The Labour leadership witch-hunts those who refuse to comply with the law.
This does not mean that the official movement can be ignored or bypassed. Jobs, wages and working conditions cannot be defended by individual action; nor can the working class be mobilised politically just by popular movements, although they have a role to play.
The key problem is in the labour movement and the problem has to be tackled there. This requires a new waves of trade union struggle, of the kind which emerged in the summer of 1989. But here the anti-union laws become a barrier. In many ways, the 1990 law aimed at stopping British Aerospace workers rally against plant closures and redundancies management under the 1990 Act, which came into force on 1 January, because some of its members had been involved in unofficial strike action.
Repudiate
Under the 1990 Act unions are obliged to repudiate any 'unlawful' (ie unofficial) action taken by their members. If a union does sufficiently repudiate its members an injunction may be granted against it. To comply with this the union may be required to take positive steps to bring this repudiation into effect - for example disciplining or expelling members or shop stewards.
Since the new law removes any legal protection from unofficial strikers a union can be sued if it takes any action in their defence - even for organising a ballot for action to defend them.
The UCW leadership has complied with this in full and in advance. Alan Tuffin sent a disgraceful special notice to all UCW members which said the following:
'All UCW officials and members are advised that with effect from 1 January 1991 it will be unlawful for any official to incite or require any worker to break his employment contract by taking part in unofficial industrial action... that has not been authorised by a secret ballot and authorised by the Executive Council...
Dismissal
'Any union official who fails in this regard: A) is in breach of the law B) is in breach of union rules and thus C) render themselves
BRITSH AEROSPACE
STOP STRATOY COMMITIES NSWN the employer without recourse to an, industrial tribunal for compensation for wrongful dismissal, and cannot be protected by the 'All UCW members are therefore instructed that they must not become involved in industrial action without a ballot on or after 1 January 1991.' This outrageous letter is a direct incitement to the Post Office management to use the law at the earliest possible opportunity, exactly what they have done in Liverpool.
Flout the law
If instead of such compliance these laws were flouted by the unions, in the way the law was flouted by those who refused to pay the poll tax, we could soon be in a very different situation: If the employers had to pay a price for the use of the law they would think twice about using it.
But this is not going to happen today. wing union leaders are still convinced, against all the evidence, that industrial action is an electoral liability which could lose Labour the next election. This problem will have to be shifted by a new round of industrial struggle initiated at rank and file level.
Preparation
There is, however, much preparatory work to be done by militants in the unions. That is the purpose of the Unshackle the Unions conference being organised by the Socialist Movement Trade Union Committee and the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers on 27