Who's afraid of militant trade unionism? TUC backs Tory laws
Labour Briefing1990sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
The TUC Congress has backed Neil Kinnock and accepted all the Tory anti-unions laws imposed on the working class over the past ten years.
Only on the use of sequestration is there any difference with the Tories. The TUC want it used less than it has been.
There will be no restoration of immunities. Solidarity action will remain illegal. Balloting procedures will remain in the hands of the courts and there will be no reintroduction of the closed shop.
TUC policy on anti-union laws has now turned a full circle. In 1982/3 the TUC had a policy of "total opposition" to the Tory law and floated a fighting fund to oppose them.
A year later at Warrington they broke their own policy and refused to support the NGA against Eddie Shah's injunction.
After the Miners' Strike they adopted the policy that although the laws are a bad thing they should be complied with. Now they are positively in favour of a Labour government retaining the laws rather than repealing them.
Kinnock's speech to the TUC the following day confirmed that he does not want to keep the anti-union laws because of he believes it would be unpopular to get rid of them, but because he intends, if he ever becomes Prime Minister, to use them.
He declared that the trade unions can expect no "favours" from a future Labour government and spelled out his determination to keep wages under control.
That can only be done by use of the anti-union laws. After a Labour election victory, workers' expectations will simply be too high to be tamed by any other means.
On the face of it, voting at Congress was close. The composite supporting the Kinnock line won 4.4m votes against 3.5m for a NALGO-backed composite which would have legalised secondary action.
But this has to be qualified by the fact that three unions – the left-led TGWU, SOGAT and NUCPS – voted for both composites, i.e., for and against the retention of the anti-union laws.
Amendments from the NGA defending the closed shop and solidarity action and restoring control of ballots to the unions were heavily defeated on a card vote.
The collapse of the TGWU left-led Executive shows the scale of the problem.
Last year the TGWU was a problem for Kinnock on this issue. Now, even after a swing to the left in the union elections last December, they have caved in completely.
The argument that militant trade unionism is a vote-loser has won out, despite previous experience which shows that in periods of militant trade union action the vote for Labour increases – unless of course, Labour puts itself on the wrong side of the picket line, as it did in 1978-79.
Militant class action will certainly be needed if the defeats of this year's TUC are to be reversed.
Such action could arise at any time; all-out action may soon be starting in the North Sea.
The Tories know that industrial militancy can raise its head at any time. That is why they are pushing more laws through Parliament and are so keen to destroy Arthur Scargill.