Labour and the unions: Kinnock keeps Tory laws for confrontation with the unions
Labour Briefing1990sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
Labour's NEC has decided to keep all the anti-union laws which the Tories have enacted since 1979.
The decision, announced in the recent Policy Review Revision, comes after a decade of success for the British ruling class in its constant attempts to shackle the unions.
Legislation against the trade unions has always been a political and industrial issue rather than a legal one. From the outset employers and their political representatives have wanted to criminalise trade union activity.
For most of their existence the unions have faced legal sanctions against collective action and even collective organisation.
The ruling class will impose whatever measures the current strengths or weaknesses of trade union movement allows them to get away with.
Collective
For most of the last century collective action was illegal until immunity from prosecution was established at the turn of the century.
It was achieved by a combination of industrial and political action. The formation of the Labour Party was one of its consequences.
The immunities established stayed in place until the 1980s — despite various attempts to abolish them by successive Tory and Labour governments.
With the real possibility of a Labour government in the next year or two it is worth remembering that the first post-war attempt to legislate against the unions was Labour's.
Barbara Castle's infamous In Place of Strife in 1969 proposed giving the government power to order workers back to work for a 28 day "cooling off period".
In Place of Strife was withdrawn by Harold Wilson after massive opposition from the trade union rank-and-file and several one-day national, unofficial strikes.
It was replaced by a deal under which the TUC agreed to "put its own house in order" — which meant stopping unofficial strikes and getting the militants under control.
Two years later Edward Heath broadly modelled his Industrial Relations Act on In Place of Strife.
He set up an industrial court with powers to order workers back to work and impose fines on the unions. The Court was greeted with a series of strikes, both official and unofficial, against its decisions and the fines it had imposed.
After the Pentonville Five were jailed for defending dockers jobs against the decisions of the Court and then released by the previously unheard of Official Solicitor, the Industrial Relations Act was dead on its feet.
However, action continued against it, including an all-out strike of the AUEW called on the casting vote of Hugh Scanlon.
After Heath was brought down by the miners, Labour were forced to repeal the Industrial Relations Act and abolish the National Industrial Relations Court.
Labour had to avoid a confrontation with the rank-and-file of the trade unions and were unable to breach pledges wrung from them by militant action.
Tory legislation begun in the early 1980s could have met the same fate. The unions were just as strong and the working class just as militant.
Unfortunately there was another development which has proven disastrous for the working class: the development of New Realism at the top of the unions in an attempt to explain the election of a Tory government after the strike action of the 1978 "Winter of Discontent".
New Realism was based on the idea that industrial action was an electoral liability and that the Tories were too strong to beat.
It led to the betrayal and defeat of a series of major strikes in steel, rail, cars and newspapers which sapped the strength of the working class and gave the Tories the space to mount a new legal challenge to the unions.
Resistance
At first the TUC, in public at least, set its face against the new laws. A fund was set up to finance resistance by those unions who fell foul of the law. Unions would be supported by strike action, even illegal strike action if necessary.
Everyone waited for the first confrontation.
It came at Warrington when the NGA was fined in its dispute with Eddie Shah. Instead of implementing TUC policy and supporting the NGA's planned national strike, the TUC ordered the strike to be called off and Shah won the day.
It was the turning point: in no time the TUC had abandoned all opposition to the anti-union laws. It did not take the Tories long to take full advantage of the situation and get more legislation on the statute book.
After the defeat of the miners the laws were again strengthened. Trade unions were tied hand and foot by legislation which became the single most serious problem facing the movement.
The laws were used to break the most militant and best organised sections of the trade union movement such as the Fleet Street unions, seafarers, and the dockers.
These laws are rooted in the betrayals of the TUC — not the strength of the ruling class or a collapse of resistance by the rank-and-file. This is important to remember if we are to map a way out of this situation.
The working class remains willing and able to mount a fightback, as was shown clearly in the strikes on the rail and elsewhere last summer.
Not only did almost every strike ballot go in favour of the most militant option irrespective of the laws, but new forms of self-organisation emerged in response to the legal situation.
This was despite the fact that virtually the whole of the trade union leadership remain committed to working within the law and refused to challenge it!
However, if the trade union leaders were not prepared to respond positively to the strikes last summer the Tories had no hesitation in reacting.
Legislation now going through Parliament is aimed specifically at unofficial strike leaders to prevent any repetition of last summer's strikes.
The measures would end the closed shop and strengthen employers' powers to victimise unofficial strikers and their leaders.
It will become lawful to sack unofficial strikers and unlawful for other workers to take any action in their defence. These proposals are potentially the most dangerous yet.
It is this context that we have to view the Kinnock leadership's new Policy Review document.
Probably
Probably most socialists thought that Kinnock would keep the bulk of the Tory laws — particularly compulsory balloting. But how many predicted that he would keep every single one — even sequestration of union assets?
This is one of the most important decisions Kinnock has made since he begun his journey down the right wing road and we have to look at his motives very carefully.
In my view, the decision to keep the whole of Tory legislation is not for fear of the bad press which would come with a decision to repeal them, but in order to use them against the trade unions and the working class.
The decision signals a confrontation with the working class in the first years of a Labour government.
Expectations will be raised if Labour is elected and there will be an increase in industrial militancy. The NEC has decided to use those laws against the working class in that situation.
Harold Wilson wanted such laws in 1969 and Neil Kinnock wants them now. Tony Blair, speaking to the media since the publication of the Review, made it absolutely clear that the laws would be used to the full.
To reverse this situation and force Labour to repeal Tory legislation more is needed than a campaign inside the Labour Party, although that is very important. This was not decisive in 1974 and it would not be decisive now.
Labour will only repeal Tory laws if they have been challenged and made unworkable before they come into office.
Now the law is complied with as a matter of course. We must change this. They have to be challenged and the courts and the employers made to pay a heavy price for their use.
This, however, implies more than just a campaign against the anti-union laws. It implies a successful campaign against New Realism at every level of the trade union movement.