The recent Gate Gourmet and Rolls Royce disputes have highlighted how Britain\u2019s anti-union laws prevent workers defending themselves. GR McColl looks at how they were imposed<\/p>\n
The post war idea of \u201ccurbing union power\u201d did not originate with the Tories. By the late 1960s the union movement was on a forward march in both the private and public sectors, with a strong shop stewards\u2019 movement that had begun to assert independence from national union bureaucracies. Mounting anxieties among key employers\u2019 bodies soon shaped the actions of Harold Wilson\u2019s Labour Government.<\/p>\n
Initially, the Donovan Commission conducted an inquiry focused on the growing influence of stewards and the alleged \u201canarchy\u201d of British industrial relations. Its conclusions were tentative, but they laid the basis for an attempted major legislative attack by Labour. This was embodied in a White Paper entitled \u201cIn Place of Strife\u201d and Barbara Castle was given the job of pushing it through. Opposition from the trade unions, then a powerful force in the party forced it to be shelved. But its substance foreshadowed key elements of the 1971 Industrial Relations Act, introduced by the Tories under Ted Heath.<\/p>\n
The Heath government underestimated the strength of the unions when it sought in one fell swoop to curtail their \u201cpower\u201d with extensive restrictions on secondary picketing and solidarity action, and threatened bans on strikes in essential services accompanied by US-style mandatory cooling off periods. The 1971 legislation was a seen as such a provocation that even the TUC had to mount a campaign of resistance. Most unions withdrew from the Act\u2019s registration procedures, but more significantly the dramatic success of the miners\u2019 1972 strike against Heath\u2019s policies of wage restraint bolstered the confidence of rank and file activists throughout the movement.<\/p>\n
The jailing of \u201cPentonville Five\u201d dockers, members of the TGWU, for contempt of court brought about a confrontation that sounded the death knell for the legislation. A mass demonstration through London\u2019s streets with tens of thousands joining unofficial strikes forced the TUC to call for Britain\u2019s first general strike in more than 45 years. The government retreated and the Law Lords to swiftly overturned the original court ruling and secured the TGWU members\u2019 release.<\/p>\n
By the end of Heath\u2019s administration in early 1974 even the CBI favoured repeal of the Act as inoperable. Few bosses were prepared to make use of its provisions and the Tories under Heath were unwilling to take on a militant union movement. In five years a new Tory leadership under Margaret Thatcher would have no such qualms. Influenced by the key ideologues of neo-liberalism such as F A von Hayek and Milton Friedman, Thatcher entered 10 Downing Street in 1979 with a ruthless determination to tame and ultimately crush effective trade unionism. But she and her key advisors were also pragmatic class warriors, prepared to move slowly rather than attempting the \u201cbig bang\u201d approach adopted by Heath.<\/p>\n
In his memoirs Thatcher\u2019s first Employment Secretary, James Prior, outlined the initial aims and approach: \u201cto bring about a lasting change in [union] attitude by changing the law gradually, with as little resistance and therefore as much stealth as possible. There were also dangers in having tougher legislation, which the employers might, in practice, be afraid to use. It would be wrong to pass legislation which the courts could not enforce as happened with the 1971 Act.\u201d (Prior, Balance of Power, 1986).<\/p>\n
The legislative assault began in 1980 with the introduction of the first of seven major Acts. The various rounds of legislation had several overarching strategic objectives:<\/p>\n
\u2022 To increase \u201clabour market\u201d flexibility – in short to make it easier to sack workers<\/p>\n
\u2022 To restrict the scope of collective bargaining<\/p>\n
\u2022 To increase state interference in unions\u2019 internal operations,<\/p>\n
\u2022 To strip unions of immunities for industrial action that left them open to massive fines or even complete sequestration – crucially by making solidarity strike action, so called \u201csecondary action\u201d, unlawful. (See box for an outline of the most significant measures).<\/p>\n
The TUC dithered for nearly two years before formulating something akin to a strategy contenting itself with a \u201cday of action\u201d, along with an educational programme for full-time officials and sometimes shop stewards. Finally, in spring 1982 the TUC convened a special conference at Wembley to agree a campaign of opposition. The conference agreed that TUC affiliates would boycott ballots on closed shop arrangements and refuse state funding for internal ballots. There was also an agreement to consider the possibility of co-ordinated industrial action to back any individual union faced with legal action under the Employment Act 1982.<\/p>\n
Initially, bosses proved reluctant to make use of the law and only a handful of cases reached the courts before Thatcher\u2019s June 1983 electoral triumph. The victory strengthened the bosses resolve and the gloves came off – the unions began to receive a pummelling in the courts.<\/p>\n
The central flashpoint came in November\/December 1983 when the National Graphical Association (NGA) mounted a defence of the closed shop, which meant all workers had to join the union, at a small provincial newspaper, the Stockport Messenger.<\/p>\n
Its publisher, Eddie Shah, was determined to make use of the law against the NGA and dragged the union through the courts in an effort to stop secondary picketing, which had, in turn, met with brutal policing. Eventually, after the courts imposed a series of fines, which the NGA refused to pay, a High Court order allowed accountants to seize the union\u2019s overall assets. Eventually, the TUC General Council voted against solidarity action in response to the attack on the NGA and abandoned the union to its fate.<\/p>\n
The capitulation of the top layer of the trade union bureaucracy at one of the first tests of will with the government set the stage for the epic confrontation between the miners and Thatcher\u2019s government in which anti-union laws were used to try and drain the union of financial resources during the strike.<\/p>\n
The ultimate defeat of the year long Great Strike in March 1985 secured for Thatcher the strategic objective of smashing the workers vanguard and paved the way for further legislative attacks. The defeat also strengthened the most right-wing sections of the union bureaucracy, which began to coalesce around a \u201cnew realism\u201d that argued that industrial resistance was effectively futile and that the future of trade unionism lay in the provision of cheaper holidays and financial services to members.<\/p>\n
The serious defeats of the 1980s and the legislative arsenal that developed around them have continued to shape the terrain of struggle today. The dead hand of bureaucracy has gained strength in many unions, with the union tops often invoking the possibility of legal action as a reason not to pursue effective action as in the case of the \u201csecondary action\u201d by baggage handlers in the Gate Gourmet dispute.<\/p>\n
After more than eight years of New Labour in office nothing has been done to remove the key restrictions on unions imposed by Thatcher. While there has been some tinkering around the margins of the anti-union laws, especially in respect of union recognition, Tony Blair has honoured his pledge to the bosses to \u201cleave British law the most restrictive on trade unions in the western world\u201d.<\/p>\n
Key elements of the Tory anti-union legislation (1980-1993)<\/p>\n
Employment Act 1980:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Restrictions on picketing and \u201csecondary\u201d action<\/p>\n
\u2022 Ballots for new closed shops<\/p>\n
\u2022 Abolition of previous basis for recognition rights<\/p>\n
Employment Act 1982:<\/p>\n
\u2022 All closed shops subject to ballots<\/p>\n
\u2022 Tighter definition of a trade dispute<\/p>\n
\u2022 Union faced new liabilities for \u201cunlawful\u201d acts<\/p>\n
Trade Union Act 1984:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Mandatory elections by secret ballot for senior official posts in national unions every five years<\/p>\n
\u2022 Ballots required for industrial action to retain immunity<\/p>\n
\u2022 Political fund ballots once a decade<\/p>\n
Employment Act 1988<\/p>\n
\u2022 Enforcement of post-entry closed shop made \u201cunlawful\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Removed right of unions to discipline\/expel members for scabbing on strikes<\/p>\n
\u2022 Creation of the office of Commissioner for the Rights of Trade Union Members<\/p>\n
Employment Act 1989<\/p>\n
\u2022 New, tighter limits on facility time for union representatives<\/p>\n
\u2022 Tighter procedures for use of Employment Tribunals and introduction of deposits for those lodging claims<\/p>\n
Employment Act 1990<\/p>\n
\u2022 Unions liable for unofficial industrial action in the absence of a written repudiation<\/p>\n
\u2022 Selective sacking allowed of those on unofficial strike<\/p>\n
\u2022 Absolute bar on \u201csecondary\u201d action<\/p>\n
\u2022 Further restrictions on the closed shop<\/p>\n
Employment Act 1993<\/p>\n
\u2022 Strike ballots become strictly postal<\/p>\n
\u2022 New rights for members of the public to sue for damages caused by industrial action<\/p>\n
\u2022 Finance from the state to pursue such cases<\/p>\n
\u2022 Minimum of seven days notice required prior to strike action<\/p>\n
\u2022 Abolition of the industrial Wages Councils<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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