Trade unions: Time to bust out of court!
Labour Briefing1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
Even the media are talking about a "summer of discontent".
Ten thousand registered dockers have voted by 74% to 26% for an all-out strike to force port employers to negotiate a national agreement to replace the National Dock Labour Scheme (NDLS).
This vote was taken in the full knowledge that such a strike would entail a major confrontation with the government.
At the time of writing over one and a half million workers are involved in either strikes or strike ballots across ten different industries.
Big majorities for strike action are being registered in industry after industry.
Not all these ballots will result in strike action, and not all the strikes will win. But taken together they indicate an important change in mood at the base of the unions and demonstrate once again that the working class in Britain is alive and kicking and ready for a fightback.
The new factor here is the faltering of Thatcherism on the economic front — previously seen by many as its greatest strength.
Despite the current rise in struggle, "New Realism" continues to dominate both the trade union and Labour Party leaderships. Many trade union leaders are more determined than ever to avoid confrontation with either the employers, the government, or the courts.
Recent decisions involving ballots held by dockers and London Underground workers underline once again that the role of the courts is now the single most serious problem facing the trade union movement in Britain.
Political
The High Court is currently considering a submission by the port employers that a dock strike would be illegal because it would challenge a decision of Parliament and would therefore be political!
They are also suing the TGWU for £250,000 for trade lost because of the ballot.
New Realism must bear the large share of responsibility for this situation. It has consistently called for compliance with the law, and each time the judges have been encouraged to go a step further.
Edward Heath's 1970 Industrial Relations Act was defeated because it was defied and discredited. The trade union movement is weaker today, and its composition has changed, but is such a strategy therefore impossible?
There are still 8,500,000 trade unionists affiliated to the TUC, despite declining membership and serious erosion of shop floor organisation.
It is absurd to argue that a trade union movement of this size has no alternative but to comply with outrageous undemocratic laws which are blatantly manipulated to the advantage of employers.
If an industrial price had to be paid for the courts' actions, decisions would be quickly tempered.
Inertia at the top of the unions is producing new responses at rank and file level. There has been some strengthening of the broad lefts, in the NUR for example.
One of the disputes on London Underground has seen the development of unofficial organisation which has outflanked the courts while pursuing a sectional wage claim.
It is a sign of things to come as higher levels of industrial struggle regenerate rank and file organisation. As a means of tackling the law, however, its usefulness is limited, since legislative moves will be made to plug the loopholes.
In any case any major confrontation with the law will need the full backing of the trade union movement.
During the Thatcher period, the employers have introduced repeated speed-up at the point of production as well as participatory techniques such as "quality circles" and "team leaders" imported from the USA and Japan.
They have abolished protective agreements and pushed in flexibility, multi-skilling, and new shift patterns.
Wage cutting, privatisation, and contracting out have created millions of unorganised, low-paid jobs, many part-time, many employing women. These workers need to be embraced by the unions and their needs addressed.
Health and safety is now a major political issue in Britain.
Accidents
Lack of investment in infrastructure, the rundown of basic public facilities (like tube and rail), low pay (which devalues the job and forces long hours of overtime) are all bound to lead to accidents.
Weakened trade union organisation — which is the only effective enforcer of even the existing and inadequate safety regulations — has exacerbated the problem.
The situation that the trade union movement finds itself in cannot be tackled by gimmicks like cheap holidays or credit cards. The unions must be strengthened at every level and the membership given the support to mount an effective fightback.
The necessary strengthening of the unions will involve the democratisation of union structures. This is crucial in challenging white male domination of the movement and also in allowing the voice of the rank and file to be heard.
This voice can even sometimes be heard through legally enforced balloting under Tory laws.
In fact, for the employers, balloting is a double-edged sword. Whilst it allows the law to intervene on behalf of the employers, it also allows a direct expression of membership opinion which can make a strike that much harder to stop.
But unions must have their own procedures.
Union members should be kept fully informed and be able to express their views in the most democratic way — through mass meetings, where possible, and workplace ballots free from court or employers' interference.
All union officers should be regularly elected, again free from the influence of courts and employers.
The conference of trade unionists being organised by the Socialist Conference in November aims to provide a forum to discuss these issues and the general direction of the trade union movement in the 1990s.