Afternoon session: Hammond's law

Conference Delegates' Briefing (Labour Party conference, Brighton 1989), Thursday issue, 5 October 1989, p. 4

Transcribed by hand from the printed page.

ONLY Scargill mentioned In Place of Strife, Wilson's doomed 1969 attack on unions. The Policy Review and successful composites put the next Labour government on course to impose In Place of Strife and Heath's Industrial Relations Court on its supporters in the unions.

Meacher, moving the Policy Review, talked of limited redress of Tory law: take away the right of minorities to defy majority votes, end sequestrations, extend powers of Industrial Tribunals, restore union rights at GCHQ, establish a legal right to recognition.

This still leaves unions without key rights. They could still be fined and subject to contempt of court (and prison?). Compulsory postal ballots would be retained; but the right to picket would not be restored.

Despite Meacher!s effective presentation the real meaning of the debate was made clear by Eric Hammond who said that this was "the happiest week of my life" and that he wholeheartedly supported this part of the Policy Review.