Defend the right to picket!
Labour Briefing1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
On Friday May 27th, a mass meeting of 1,000 Dover seafarers voted unanimously to reject an appeal from the NUS leadership to end mass picketing of the Dover Eastern Dock and thereby clear the way for an ending to the sequestration of the union's funds.
With Sam McCluskie now in hospital, the NUS Deputy Geneal Secretary made the futile appeal — explaining that the judge had refused to lift the sequestration order whilst mass picketing continued.
In an unprecedented move, the High Court ruled that the picket must be restricted to six people — not just six talking to those going in, but any six in the vicinity of the gate! The figure of six had previously been a police guideline (originally a TUC guideline).
The ruling has in effect created a new law which severely restricts the right to picket. None of the Wapping pickets, for example, would have been legal under this ruling.
The decision of the mass meeting to defy this intolerable judgement is a boost for the whole labour movement.
The stand taken by the Dover strikers means that sequestration will continue — and that they must now look to rest of the labour movement for their basic means of survival.
The right to picket is an essential part of the right to strike. The initiatives taken at Dover to defend this right should be widely supported.