Lessons of past struggles Tory anti union laws: how to fight them

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IN THE summer of 1972 a long-smouldering dispute by dockers against job-cutting containerisation blew up into a full scale confrontation with the Tory government's new Industrial Relations Act and its special Court. The Court instructed TGWU officials to discipline docks stewards who ignored instructions to lift the "blacking" and picketing of container firms. When the TGWU failed to stop the action, it was fined £55,000. Eventually five London dockers were arrested for contempt of court and held in Pentonville Jail. The imprisonment unleashed a massive spontaneous strike which forced their rapid release - as the paper 'Workers Fight' reported.

Printworkers were among the first to walk out in support of the PenIF THE release of the 'Pentonville Five' in the face of mass strike action represented a victory for the working class, it also showed how much more could be achieved if the TUC leaders were really prepared to fight. The lessons drawn out of the situation by Workers Fight in 1972 remain valid in today's substantially different conditions, where union leaders are, if anything, now more reconciled to acceptance of Tory anti-union laws, and opposed to mass resistance. AT THE jailing of the five, the dockers came out nationwide, even in the small ports. The lorry drivers who had had differences with the dockers were out too. Their leader said "as trade unionists, we must fight the Industrial Relations Act together."

Print workers in NATSOPA were also on strike, first on Fleet Street and spreading right across the country, shutting down most major newspapers.

There was growing action on a local scale.

In London, container workers, warehousemen, market workers, ship repair workers, busworkers, and Tower Hamlets municipal workers struck against the jailing. Heathrow Airport was shut down by industrial action. And train drivers and ticket collectors on the Southern Region at Waterloo voted to strike.

In Liverpool, 8,000 lorry drivers came out on strike. Action was also taken by building workers on a number of major sites, factory workers at Fisher Bendix and Krafts, and Cammell Laird ship repairers. In St Helens, transport workers struck and militant building workers formed mobile picket to bring factories out.

Spread

Building workers in Manchester had a half-day strike and demonstration of 2,000 - on their claim but also on the Act -on the Wednesday. Construction workers at Shell Carrington were out on strike, as were factory workers at Platt International, Oldham, and Churchills, Altrincham.

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In Birmingham, as elsewhere, many major factories were on holiday, but SU Carburettors struck.

Construction workers on Teesside, and in Scotland, miners at a number of pits and Glasgow Corporation electricians, also took action.

The movement would certainly have spread further if the Tories hadn't freed the five on Wednesday 26 July. Even on Wednesday morning, a mobile picket organised by militant workers in Kirkby, near Liverpool, brought out several small factories on the Kirkby industrial estate.

A number of factories, including militant car factories, were due back from holidays the following Monday, and many would have voted to strike. Even in the less militant areas where there was no strike action, such as Bolton, the feeling of ordinary workers was moving substantially in support of the dockers.

Bolton engineering union leaders were pressured into calling on the TUC to organise automatic strike action in the event of any fines being extracted or unionists jailed under the Industrial Relations Act.

And, of course, if the official trade union leadership had done anything to justity the title leadershin' _ t then industry would have been at a standstill.

But the first few days alone showed a solid phalanx of leading sections of the labour movement standing up against the Tories.

The basic mechanism of trade union solidarity is in good working order.

CORGANISER socio est How to fight the Tories Te Labour i Socialist the foin Party Fight ORGANISER for policies i TIC tonville S. 1972 ACCORDING to the legend the Hydra was a monster with a peculiar constitution: when one of its heads was cut off others grew in its place.

The Hydra was a myth. But there is nothing mythical about the Tory Industrial Relations Act.

At the very same time as it stepped down in the confrontation over the jailings it spawned another challenge. The House of Lords reimposed the £55,000 fine on the T&GWU BILL - with an added £25,000 for costs.

This means that it is the Trade Union leaders who are back' in the firing, line, and the Industrial Relations Act is operating according to its original intention.

They never planned to jail shop stewards. Now they plan to use fines and other pressure to turn the union leaders into efficient policemen against the working class.

Their goal is the complete DOCK THE

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LEN MURRAY and SOGAT leader Bill Keys have been given a blank cheque by the TUC General Council to engage in back-room talks and seek out some form of deal with Tory Employment Secretary Tom King on the They will no doubt go into the talks tooled up with persuasive arguments designed to shake the Tories' confidence. Their main line of approach? TUC right wingers have castigated the King Bill, with its extensiv provision for compulsory ballots before strike action, as 'a Trots' Charter' which will hand increased power to unofficial shop floor leaderships and make it harder for full time union bureaucrats to intervene and sell out between Unions' in disputes. comes law than it is now. 'The further aim, wherever 5) Empowering the General MAY 14 1980 was the last time the TUC organised any concerted action against Tory anti-union laws. But in the run up to this 'day of action' a witch-hunted Len Murray and other union bureaucrats spent most of their time denying it was a day of strike action and attempting to restrict workers to lunch-hour meetings. Despite this, Fleet Street newspapers were halted by a printworkers strike and the day proved to be a massive show of industrial resistance across the country.

d councils of action 'HE '8 point plan' put » a conference of union Execuives at Wembley Conference 'entre on April 5 contains o call for action of any decription. The TUC's proposals re: 1) 'Affiliated unions should ffirm their commitment to onduct a campaign among beir own members to highlight be dangers in the Employdent Bill.' -in other words a few ircular letters to branches nd perhaps a few leaflets: ven badges, posters and lickers, but no action. 2) 'Affiliated unions shall ot hold or participate in secret allots on union membership greement under conditions lid down in the Employment iill.' —But will affiliated unions ress a determined unionisation rive and fight to establish osed shops in the traditional ay in defiance of the Tebbit lan? The TUC formula amunts to in fact to an abandonent of the fight to establish 10% trade union membership - just what Tebbit want to chieve. And no proposals e spelled out for the defence I existing closed shops against ebbit's plan for imposing COMNITEE 3) 'Affiliated unions shall observe Congress policy and not seek or accept public funds for union ballots under the 1980 Employment Act ballot funds VALY ANYT schème.' -The TUC is deliberately vague about what would happen to a right wing union which did accept funds _ as it appears to be the case now with the actors' union Equity. Will they be expelled from the TUC? But, possibly more important, the TUC leaders raise not a voice in defiance of the traditional methods of workers' democracy — shows of hands at mass meetings _ in opposttion to the Tory strategy of balloting individual members by post — in the isolation of their own homes.

4) A call for 'closer working possible, should be to coordinate and concert negotiations and industrial action' -This poses as a challenge to the moves by Tebbit and Prior to render 'secondary' strikes, picketing and blacking illegal: but all of the evidence of recent "close working between Unions' has been of General Secretaries ganging up against the rank and file workforce to sell-out struggles on pay, jobs and conditions.

Socialists of course support inter-union solidarity and the spreading of strikes: but the fundamental problem in achieving this is to win the solidarity of union officials for the struggles conducted by their members on the shop floor. There is no reason to believe this would be preater after Tebbit's Bill benext set of anti-union legislation.

strikes!

Council, on receipt of a request from a union faced by legal action, to:

"i) co-ordinate action by other affiliated unions insupport of the union in difficulties, including, if necessary, calling for industrial action against the employer concerned, or more widely.

ii) to provide financial assistance to a union which experiences severe tinancial probems as a result of damaging actions.' -But this whole, militant-sounding proposal relates to unions under attack after Tebbit's Bill becomes law! This is not so much a fight against Tebbit but dishing out aspirins for the wounded after the fight has been lost.

6) Financial assistance for unions faced with legal action for pursuing existing TUC Disputes Principles and Procedures.

-Once again conceding that Tebbit's Bill will be put on the statute books, and that the main beneficiaries of the TUC's 'action' programme will be the legal profession pocketing fat fees.

7) 'No trade union member of an industrial tribunal or the Employment Appeal Tribunal should serve on cases arising from the application of a union membership agreement or arrangement.' —In plain English this means that union bureaucrats will continue to sit on Industrial Tribunals and a whole panoply of collaborationist bodies with management and government representatives, right up to the NEDC level _ while the bosses LOCcca0aal Uncompromising: Thatcher sharpen the knife for use against the shop floor.

8) A financial levy of 10p per member on al affiliated unions to set up a 'Campaign and Defence Fund' -This is to pay the armies of lawyers who will take over negotiations and to finance a stream of ineffectual leaflets and posters justifying the TUC's inaction.

Yet this bankrupt package of surrender is being vaunted by 'left' bureaucrats as a recipe for struggle against Thatcher!

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'Thezop aga we stand

SHOP SIETARDS CRISE-YE WORKERS ow not to!