Tebbit and the bosses' NEW ANTI UNION LAWS BUILD ON PRIOR'S FRAMEWORK

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Tebbit's Bill: a new blow to solidarity pickets is hopeless. TGWU leaders, for example,

THE usefulness of the law as a weapon against trade unionists can be seen from 12 months of the Employment Act.

When an injunction was granted under the Act

against workers picketing Chloride Batteries, the TGWU called off the picketing.

When an injunction was granted against lorry drivers picketing the Liverpool docks the picketing was halted, the court. order accepted.

Norman Tebbit's proposals for a new legal offensive against trade unions were published in December and are an essential part of Tory economic strategy.

Building on the framework laid down in the Employment Act, these proposals are inteded to add new pressures to:

*galvanise the employers to move further from old style incorporation at plant and company level and take more direct measures against union organisation;

*to use the union leaders as policemen to destroy the attempt of workers to resist redundancy, cuts and the onslaught on wages and conditions.

Injunctions

These two aims are to some extent contradictory and represent a longstanding tension in Tory thinking about law and trade unions.

Whether the unions will be able to exploit this in the same way as in the early seventies, however, is another question.

The new proposals are intended firstly to further weaken union organisation which is already feeling the impact of membership loss through unemployment.

The Tories now wish to stimulate a loss of members with jobs.

Tebbit now proposes to make it more difficult for an employer to maintain a closed shop. An employer will only be protected if the closed shop was arrived at after a ballot in the last three years in which at least 80% of those covered by the closed shop voted for it.

This applies to all existing closed shops.

Tebbit then attempts to make it worthwhile for potential scabs to rip up their union cards by offermissed if these conditions do not exist (or even if they do if the worker objects to union membership on grounds of conscience).

He goes on to attempt to frighten trade unionists into not opposing this type of scabbing by allowing the dissident to involve workers threatening industrial action to defend 100% membership in a tribunal case, so that these workers could have to pay all or most of the compensation awarded.

Secondly the new proposals attempt to further limit the ability of workers to take struggles outside their own workplace or company-an increasing necessity in today's disputes.

Workers would not be legally protected where a dispute related only to matters outside Great Britain, outlawing action, for example, against the regimes in South Africa, Chile or Poland.

Even more important, the Employment Act's prohibitions on secondary action are taken further so that the proposals state that lawful trade disputes are to be restricted to 'disputes between an employee and his employer' If this was so, any blacking or picketing outside the direct company would be open to injunctions and damages.

The law will also tightened up io make easier for an employer sack workers on strike.

Thirdly, the proposals attempt to strengthen certain tendencies already operating in the unions to concentrate power at the top and weaken internal democracy.

If a legal wrong is committed, whether it is workers picketing another workplace, calling for blacking or defending a closed shop, the employer will have the right to sue the union, not just the individual involved.

Compensation could go as high as £250,000.

Unions could only get off the hook if they disowned the action, probably going as far as disciplining members who stood out against them, or if the members do not have authority to take action under the rules.

The tendencies in a union like the AUEW to undermine the powers of stewards committees and District Committees may well be strengthened and unions like this may attempt to revise rules and credentials.

The aim is not to bankrupt unions. It is to inject even more, new, approved cowardice into the backbones of those who appear to be able to act with conviction and decision only when breaking strikes.

The rank and file are obviously weaker than when the Industrial Relations Act was swept away. We need more centralised action.

\There are some healthy signs. The union leaders dislike the straitjacket that the unpredictable law places on their manoeuvrability, whatever the appetites for collaboration, and may be pushed into at least initiating some from all other collaborationmoves.

To defeat the Tories' ist bodies; legal offensive we need to fight to get the TUC to: bosses. Withdraw from all *Stop talking to the joint union employer bodies. Tories, not only about the Act but by withdrawing proposals reaching the Prior statute book; *A pledye from the TUC *Stop talking to the of national strike action in defence of any union victimised by the new legislation if *Strike action to stop the it reaches the statute book.

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ing compensation of over £25,000 to workers dis-