Undermining the right to strike

International Viewpoint 210, July 1991

Transcribed by hand from the printed page.

THE British trade union movement — numerically still very powerful — is taking a beating. Unemployment has been increasing at a record rate with no significant resistance. The employers feel their strength and have launched a new offensive. Restructuring schemes are underway in a range of industries. Wage settlements in the engineering industry are the lowest for many years. The number of employers negotiating collective agreements is declining and the withdrawal of recognition from trade unions is strongly on the increase. Behind this bleak picture is a collapse of confidence amongst the rank-and-file of the unions which is difficult to reverse.

THERE have been some recent gains, most importantly the defeat of the right (and the election of a black person, Bill Morris) in the ballot for general secretary of Britain's biggest union, the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), but these do not alter the general picture. The employers are doing more or less as they like, with very little resistance.

Three principle factors combine to create this situation:

● The depth of the current recession and the resulting high unemployment.

● The grip of "new realism" [1] on the labour movement, which is now almost total.

● The success of the Tory anti-union laws.

The most important of these inter-related factors is the success of the anti-union laws. Challenging the legal straitjacket they impose is the single most important issue facing the unions in Britain.

The range of measures now available to employers for use against the unions are the result of a series of seven Acts of Parliament introduced over the past 12 years:

● The 1980 Employment Act: This introduced the concept of "secondary action", a definition that restricts industrial action to "your own" workplace and makes solidarity action — defined as "politically based" action — illegal.

● The 1982 Employment Act: This abolished the immunity against claims for damages over losses due to industrial action enjoyed by the unions since 1906.

● The 1984 Trade Union Act: This introduced the principle of mandatory postal ballots in union elections. It also made the existence of a union's political fund contingent on a postal ballot. [2]

● The 1986 Public Order Act: This increased the power of the police over pickets.

● The 1988 Employment Act: This makes ballots compulsory before strike action can be taken. It also allowed the greater use of injunctions against unions and gave rights to dissident members to challenge unions in the courts over internal union matters.

● The 1989 Employment Act: This reduced the rights of dismissed workers and restricted time off for union duties.

● The 1990 Employment Act: This is the most draconian of all. It makes pre-entry closed shops [3] illegal, places further restrictions on secondary action, makes unions legally liable for unofficial action unless they specifically repudiate it, legalizes the sacking of unofficial strikers and makes it illegal to take any, even official, action in defence of those sacked in this way.

Lawyers determine union strategy

The effect of these laws, and the attitude of union leaders, has been to drag the unions into a legal morass. In most unions, lawyers control every move towards possible industrial action right from the early stages. They set the parameters of what the union leadership can or cannot do. They often interpret the law even more strictly than the courts, and many union leaders are happy for them to do so.

These laws, particularly in the absence of any positive rights for trade unions, are a formidable weapon in the hands of the employers and the government. The responsibility for this dire situation rests entirely with the new realists. Right from 1980, they have been determined to avoid any confrontation with the government. The Trade Union Congress (TUC — the single union confederation) initially declared that they would fight the laws but dropped their opposition and by 1983 began insisting that the law must be complied with. This helped to defeat the miners, the printers, the seafarers and the dockers and acted as a direct encouragement for more laws to be introduced stage by stage. The defeat of the miners in 1984-85 was the decisive turn, strengthening both the Tory government and the new realist right.

This situation is compounded by political decisions of both the TUC and the Kinnock leadership of the Labour Party. Last year's LP conference, with the backing of the TUC, voted to keep the whole range of Tory anti-union laws, with only slight modifications. This indicates the extent of the shift to the right by the Labour leadership; last time Labour came to office, in 1974, they were forced to repeal all the anti-union laws enacted by the previous Tory government of Edward Heath — and this despite the fact that Harold Wilson's Labour government had already tried to introduce anti-union legislation in 1969.

There are some more positive factors in the situation. The total trade union membership, though down from its height of 12 million, remains at 9 million, and in some white collar sectors there has been a strengthening of trade unionism.

But these factors cannot offset the damage which has been done through the defeat of traditionally strong sectors such as the miners and printers, and the decline of the shop stewards' movement [4] (in strength more than in numbers) in the blue collar sector and in productive industry. Previously a challenge would have come from one of the powerful and well-placed sectors and opened the situation up. This is less likely to happen now since there are far less such sectors.

This does not mean that the working class has lost its will to fight. It means that there is a feeling that, under present conditions, the odds are too great.

The problem is that the trade union laws are now routinely complied with, and it is this which has to be changed. This can be codified in the slogan: "defiance not compliance". The laws have to be defied wherever possible and the employers made to pay a price for using the law against unions. Until this starts to be done, the straitjacket will remain.

The spectacular victory of the mass non-payment movement against the poll tax shows that non-compliance is perfectly possible. Some 14 million people defied the law and the government was forced to retreat. What was possible with the poll tax is also possible with the anti-union laws. However, it must be remembered that the anti-poll tax movement was completely outside the organized labour movement; indeed the TUC was urging people to pay.

A campaign has to be built up now so that a serious challenge to the law can be mounted when the level of class struggle rises. This will not happen automatically at the end of the recession — whenever that may be.

The main reasons for the collapse of confidence are political and the most important factor that will effect it is the outcome of the general election — which has to come within the next year.

The Tories are in deep crisis and the most likely outcome of the general election (although by no means certain) is a Labour government. It is a paradox of the present political situation in Britain that the Labour Party has moved further to the right than at any time since the war — at just the time when the working class needs a Labour government more than at any time since the war!

Even under Kinnock, a victory for Labour would boost working class confidence, raise expectations and set the scene for battles with Labour when Kinnock opposes these aspirations. A fourth term of office for the Tories on the other hand would compound the present situation and make a fight back even more difficult.

In itself, the election of a Labour government would not resolve the matter of the anti-union laws — far from it. In fact, the Labour government would probably soon be using the Tory laws against a more militant working class. The struggle inside the labour movement to commit Labour to repeal of the anti-union legislation is thus of crucial importance.

The campaign which has thus far done the most in Britain to keep the issue of the anti-union laws at the front of the political agenda has been mounted through the trade union committee of the Socialist Movement, which has developed an initiative called the "Unshackle the Unions Campaign".

Last year this campaign organized a lobby of Labour Party conference on the matter, and it held a highly successful conference this April bringing together some 250 trade union militants to discuss the impact of the anti-union laws and how to fight them.

Such work is crucial if militants in the unions are going to be able to prepare the ground to reverse the situation.

The carrot and the stick

Box printed with the article.

SINCE this article was completed the Tories have announced a further package of anti-union laws to be pushed through parliament early in 1992. This uses the same "carrot and stick" method employed throughout. On the one hand, they will impose a "cooling off period" before any strike, even a legal one, can take place and, on the other, they will require the presence of independent scrutineers to be appointed for all union elections.

This is a very skillful package, aimed at restoring government popularity before the election. Whilst imposing a further constraint on union action, the measures appear to address the issue of union democracy — which is popular among the rank-and-file of the unions. The author of this article, for example, struggled for many years in the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) to get agreement on independent scrutineers in union ballots — with little success. Now the Tories are cashing in on the traditional corruption in the unions for their own ends.

Notes

1. "New realism": the name given to the formal renunciation of class struggle by Labour and union leaders and attendant ideologues.
2. Formally speaking, the unions' political funds can be used to support any party or cause, but in fact they are the main financial resource of the Labour Party — a fact of which everyone is well aware. Government ordered ballots of union members in the early 1980s produced overwhelming majorities in favour of retaining the funds.
3. Closed shop: automatic and compulsory union membership.
4. Shop stewards are directly elected workplace representatives. In the 1960s and 70s shop stewards' networks formed an important alternative power centre in the unions to that of the bureaucracies.