Harold Wilson's Labour government had already tried to introduce anti-union legislation in 1969. There are some more positive factore in the citation Tha total factors in the situation. The total trade union membership, though down from its height of 12 million, remains at 9 million, and in Company some white collar sectors there stores! has been a strengthening of trade unionism. But these factors cannot offset the damage which has been done through the defeat of traditionally strong sectors such as the miners and printers, and the decline of the shop stewards' movement* (in strength more than in numbers) in the blue col-
ALAN THORNETT T HERE have been some recent gains, most importantly the defeat of the right (and the election of a black person, Bill Morris) in the ballot for general secretary of Britain's biggest union, the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), but these do not alter the general picture. The employers are doing more or less as they like, with very little resistance.
Three principle factors combine to create this situation:
• The depth of the current recession and the resulting high unemployment.
• The grip of "new realism" 1 on the labour movement, which is now almost total.
• The success of the Tory anti-union laws.
The most important of these interrelated factors is the success of the anti-union laws. Challenging the legal straitjacket they impose is the single most important issue facing the unions in Britain.
The range of measures now available to employers for use action enjoyed by the unions since 1906.
• The 1984 Trade Union Act: This introduced the principle of mandatory postal ballots in union elections. It also made the existence of a union's political fund contingent on a postal ballot.?
• The 1986 Public Order Act: This increased the power of the police over pickets.
• The 1988 Employment Act: This makes ballots compulsory before strike action can be taken. It also allowed the greater use of injunctions against unions and gave rights to dissident members to challenge unions in the courts over internal union matters.
• The 1989 Employment Act: This reduced the rights of dismissed workers and restricted time off for union duties.
• The 1990 Employment Act: This is the most draconian of all. It makes pre-entry closed shops? illegal, places further restrictions on secondary action, makes unions legally liable for unofficial action unless they specifically repudiate it,
Ah, for Victorian against the unions are the values! Family life:
result of a series of seven Acts hardwork: respect:
of Parliament introduced over discipline...
the past 12 years:
• The 1980 Employment
Hmmm...
Sweat-
Act: This introduced the conshops!
cept of "secondary action", a definition that restricts industrial action to "your own"
workplace and makes solidarity action — defined as "politically based" action — illegal.
• The 1982 Employment
Act: This abolished the immunity against claims for damag-
20 es over losses due to industrial
International Viewpoint #210 • July 8, 1991
The carrot and the stick
SINCE this article was completed the Tories have announced a further package of anti-union laws to be pushed through parlament earivin
1992. This uses the same "carrot we parlament early In and stick" method employed throughout. On the one hand, they will impose a "cooling off period" before any strike, even a legal one, can take place and, on the other, they will require the presence of independent scrutineers to be appointed for all union elections.
This is a very skillful package, aimed at restoring government popbarity before the election. Whilst imposing a further constraint on union action, the measures appear to address the issue of union democracy - which Is popular among the rank-and-file of the unions. The author of this article, for example, struggled for many years in the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) to get agreement on Independent scrutineers in union mounted when the level of class strug gle rises. This will not happen automatically at the end of the recession - whenever that may be.
The main reasons for the collapse of confidence are political and the most important factor that will effect it is the outcome of the general election -which has to come within the next we te next year.
The Tories are in deep crisis and the most likely outcome of the general election (although by no means certain) is a Labour government. It is a paradox of the present political situation in Britain that the Labour Party has moved further to the right than at any time since the war — at just the time when the working class needs a Labour government more than at any time since the war!
Even under Kinnock, a victory for Labour would boost working class confidence, raise expectations and set the scene for battles with Labour when Kinnock opposes these aspirations. A fourth term of office for the Tories on the other hand would compound the present situation and make a fight back even more difficult. In itself, the election of a Labour
BRITAIN / PERU
The left against
Fujimori IN HIS first months in office, Peru's president Alberto Fujimori has dashed the hopes of the many who voted for him in the belief that he represented an opposition to the privatization and austerity programme on offer from the far right grouped around the candidacy of the writer Mario Vargas Llosa.