Ted Heath's

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John Mclir fight st the tight.

(They only deregistered when the dockers were imprisoned. Even then around 20 unions had to be expelled from the TUC including the NGA and the Bakers' Union).

The miners' strike and the Manchester engineering sit-ins, however, showed that the belly for a fight with the Tories was there.

In March and April 1972 the railway unions collaborated in the operation of a cooling off period and ballot ordered under the Act. However, the ranks demonstrated their hostility by a 90% vote for industrial action.

The tide was to be turned by the dockers. Organising a campaign to ensure that container work was handled under the conditions of the Dockworkers Board Scheme, they picketed container depots and blacked haulage firms that dealt with them. The TGWU was hauled before the National Industrial Relations Court and ordered to call off the action.

The Executive failed to convince the dockers that they should call off their action, and were fined for contempt of court in failing to ensure that the injunction was carried out.

Jack Jones, immediately caved in and got the General Council to change its policy so that he could Roy maps o it Tebbit f TRILEI action.

lessons for n the fi ilations Ac attend the court.

He argued that the TGWU as an organisation was not responsible for the actions of its represenatives. The injunction should have been issued against the stewards as individuals. The executive had not authorised the This reasoning was accepted by the Court of Appeal, headed by Lord Denning. But the dockers their contempt for the Ace by going right on with whạt was required to win their dispute. On Friday July 22 five stewards were rrester and lodged in Pentonville Gaol Dockers all over the strike. country Feet Street was walked out on closed down and, despite he 'fact that it was the holiday period, a rolling strike moyement began.

With over a quarter of a million workers out the General Council acted quickly and called a one-day national stoppage for the next Monday. Despite the TUC's inadequacy, the judiciary saw that this would undoubtedly escalate into an indefinite general strike.

The Times was calling for Heath's resignation. His number two, Maudling, questioned whether democracy couldecentled unprecedente d House Lords overruling the Court of Appea judgement was rushed out finding that the TGWU as an organisation, not the stewards as individuals, was responsible.

Despite the fact that the latter had not 'purged their contempt they were swiftly released on 28 July.

The rank and file had smashed a hole through the Act and the Government strategy. They had shown the power of united rank and file action.

Tailed

The leadership and the MPs tailed behind (when Bernadette Devlin tried to move a motion in the House of Commons urging the General Council to call a General Strike not one Labour MP would second it). They missed the opportunity in the summer of 1972 to dislodge the Act and the Tory government.

The voice of those who had argued constantly for a General Strike, and who saW its preconditions mature through that year, was unfortunately too small and weak to exercise mass influence and change the course of history.

Heath was adaptable. The Industrial Relations Act was crippled, for a time at least: but he changed course, and by the autumn had inveigled the TUC into a formal Incomes Policy.

When the AUEW was fined for refusing to admit anti-union James Goad and again for continuing a recognition strike at Con Mech there was widespread solidarity action. On the other hand, the Shrewsbury pickets were successfully victimised with only minority support action. But by late 1973; of course, the miners' strike that was to kick the Tories out was developing.

The Act itself received its final comeuppance in the early days of the Labour government, when the NIRC attempted to seize AUEW assets to pay for a fine arising out of the Con Mech dispute. The AUEW Executive called out its entire membership, the response was instant, and an anonymous donor (reputed to be the Engineering Employers' Federation) paid the fine. This incident alone was an WORKERS' PRESS war excellent rebuttal to those who argued the members were not prepared to respond to decisive leadership.

The Industrial Relations Act had been a gigantie failure, but not simply because of its own contradictions. Anti-union law can and has worked. What stopped it was the response of the workers.

Its impact from the point of view of the employers and their state was negative. Heath made capital's predicament worse hand the other since then we have learned painfully about the limitations of the industrial militancy of those exciting years. • The fight against Tebbit has both parallels and differences with the fight against the Industrial Relations Act.

The Act tried to do too much at once. Today's Tories have not made that mistake. However, they have involved themselves in the same potential contradiction in trying to attack the union leaders' institutional interests at the same time as seeking to gain their cooperation against the rank and file.

Against the Industrial Relations Act, even limited campaign was able to energise the rank and file and legitimise their action. Then rank and file action was able to make the state to bend, retreat and back down. The way the dockers were released, for exampie, showed the