Repeal anti-union laws: ten years of betrayal
Labour Briefing1990sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
The biggest single success of Thatcherism has been the introduction of anti-union laws.
Carefully drafted and cleverly timed, they have been at the root of the defeats suffered by the unions in the past ten years.
In Thatcher's first term, incipient New Realism, based on a conviction that strikes were an electoral liability for Labour and that the Tories were too strong to beat led to the betrayal of a series of major strikes in steel, rail, cars and newspapers.
These defeats sapped the strength of the working class and gave the Tories the space to mount a new legal challenge to the unions.
The TUC, in public at least, set its face against the new laws. A fund was set up to finance resistance. If necessary 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 and ordered to end its dispute with Eddie Shah. The TUC ordered the strike to be called off. It was a major turning point. The TUC then stood back when the NUM's funds were sequestrated during the great strike of 1984/5.
Miners
After the miners' defeat the laws were further strengthened and enforced more rigorously. At Wapping Murdoch moved the location of his plant at the same time as sacking his printers. Their strike was then declared to be illegal secondary action. The print union tried to keep within the law and refused to call out Fleet Street. This led to isolation and another defeat.
The seafarers' strike started with a secret ballot, as required by law. Of the 2,300 seafarers only ONE voted against strike action. Before long, however, P&O announced the sacking of all the strikers, the employment of scab crews to replace them, the ending of all collective agreements, and the derecognition of the NUS.
The NUS rank and file responded immediately and the strike spread to the membership as a whole. Within 24 hours of Sam McCluskie's call that no British Ferries should sail from any British Port, action had spread to 19 other ports.
Solidarity action brought Sealink's entire fleet to a standstill. The employers then obtained a High Court injunction requiring a return to work on all their ships. It was an outright confrontation between the NUS and the courts.
McCluskie surprised everyone when he publicly stated that the union should defy the law and extend the action beyond the ferries. The NUS Executive called an all-out strike of the whole of their membership including those on deep-sea ships.
It was a momentous decision. Virtually every ship came out. Ferry crews struck at all ports and supply ships to North Sea oil rigs were hit. In several ports ships were occupied when crews were sacked for taking action.
The High Court fined the NUS £150,000 and ordered the sequestration of all its assets, including its £2,800,000 funds, the closure of all its offices (national and local), the freezing of staff wages, the suspension of its pension fund, the impounding of union cars and the cutting-off of union phones.
McCluskie vowed to "run the union from a tent on Clapham Common". A right-winger appeared to be leading the most important challenge to the anti-union laws since the end of the miners' strike.
Behind the scenes, however, was the dead hand of the TUC. Willis told McCluskie that the TUC could give no support whilst the strike was illegal. A few days later McCluskie caved in and ordered the end of the strike.
Last year the dockers faced the courts. The government abolished the National Dock Labour Scheme. A big majority vote by the dockers for an all- out strike to defend the scheme meant nothing once Ron Todd announced that the TGWU intended to keep within the law.
It took seven weeks in the courts to establish whether a strike of the Scheme ports for a new national agreement would be legal. After that was won the law still had a strangle-hold on the strike since any support from unregistered ports – crucial to the strike's effectiveness – would be unlawful secondary action.
When the strike eventually began, months after the original vote, the confidence of the dockers was sapped and the employers were tooled up to beat the union.
The courts were also used last summer against the NUR after London Underground workers voted for an all-out strike in pursuit of their wage claim. The ballot paper was declared to be confusing, the result was dis-allowed, and no further ballot for all-out action was ever taken.
The additional laws now being pushed through Parliament by the Tories are designed to deal with the type of unofficial action which followed on the Underground. The new laws will make it lawful for employers to sack those on unofficial strike and unlawful for other workers to take any action in their defence.
In Britain today a strike without a legal challenge is the exception rather than the rule.
This makes the decision of the TUC and the Labour leadership to keep the Tory laws under a Labour government absolutely scandalous. Clearly Neil Kinnock is preparing to use these laws against the unions in the same way they have been used under Thatcher.