Trade unions and the law: victory takes us back to square one!
Labour Briefing1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
What lies behind the contradictory decisions by the courts on the use of the law against the unions?
The High Court refused the port employers an injunction to stop a dock strike, the Court of Appeal granted it, and then it was squashed by those defenders of working class rights — the Law Lords.
Part of the answer lies in the staggeringly far-reaching implications of the decisions the High Court took.
There were four elements in their judgement:
• Since the National Dock Labour Scheme itself required the dockers to work, it was illegal for them to go on strike.
This implied that every strike the dockers had had since the Scheme was introduced in 1947 has been illegal and that it is illegal for anyone to go on strike since their contract of employment requires them to go to work.
• The strike would be against the public interest and therefore illegal.
This implies that most strikes are illegal, since most could affect the "public interest" in some way.
• The strike would affect the Port Employers more than the union, and is therefore illegal.
This must be the case in every strike.
• The strike would be against the national interest, and therefore illegal.
These decisions, or any one of them, would end the right to strike in this country at a stroke, providing the employers were prepared to go to the courts and use these criteria, which of course they would.
Ron Todd has described the decision of the Law Lords to overturn these rulings as a victory for the trade union movement, and in a sense it is: It was followed by the failure of British Rail to use the courts to stop the rail strikes.
But why did they do it? Were they afraid of the developing unofficial strikes which would take control from the official leadership, as Socialist Worker has suggested? Or does it reflect divisions in the ruling class?
All the indications are that there are divisions in the ruling class on this which is reflected now in contradictory statements over whether to ban strikes in public services.
First Fowler says they are considering such a move; and then it is denied. Then Thatcher comes out and says they are planning such a ban and Fowler is not so sure about it.
There is clearly a section of the ruling class who see this move, like the Court of Appeal decision on the dockers, as going too far too fast and that the trikme is not right for such total bans on strikes.
This does not mean that the Tories are not pushing forward with their anti-union laws.
The Green Paper presented to parliament this year further attacks the closed shop and prevents unions taking disciplinary action against members who refues to abide by a strike vote.
They are now preparing legislation against unofficial strikers which would require unions to expel them if they break the law, or the union would face sequestration.
There is now an "ombudsman" with a £4 million budget empowered to finance individual trade unionists who want to take action against their own union.
This fund was used last month to finance action against the NUR by two members who claimed they had not received ballot papers. The action was only lost on technical grounds.
Despite the Court of Appeal ruling on the dockers, the use of the law — and the fact that it is almost always complied with by the union leaders — is the biggest single problem facing the trade union movement.
The Court of Appeal ruling was a legal victory, but it has resoved nothing for the unions.