LOOKING BACK ON TAFF VALE

The Taff Vale judgement of 1901 was a powerful blow against the trade union movement which drastically changed its legal position.

When the five Law Lords sitting on July 22 in an action taken by the Taff Vale Railway Co. against two officials of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS) declared that 'a trade union was liable to be sued in its registered name' employers all over the country were jubilant.

With these few words, the judiciary, on behalf of the employers, had struck a crippling blow against trade unionism, the only defence of the working class against exploitation. The decision made it virtually impossible to carry out picketing during a strike and enabled employers to sue a union for damages inflicted during a trade dispute.

A trade union would think twice about calling a strike which might result in it being saddled with heavy damages and legal costs sufficient to ruin it financially. The judgement was thus a class attack by the judiciary on the rights of trade unions which were believed to exist under the Acts of 1867 and 1875.

Not only was effective picketing made virtually imSTRIKE!

There has bo2! dotrike on the Talf Vale Railway since Monday las; Ta? Mangement are using every decoy men here who they purpose of black-legging the mon on Drivers, Firemen, Guards, Brakesmen and SIGNALMEN willing to be known If you accept employment on the Tall Vale. that is whit employment on the Tall you will be known by. On arriving at Cardiff, call at the lown by. On arriving above address, where you can get information and idquarters. obourn you can assistance.

General :

PRISTIN possible, but the question of whether the workers had any rights of combination at allwhether the trade unions were legal bodies-was now raised. In addition, trade unions could be restrained by court injunction from activities regarded as tortious; in other words, the full power of the law could be mobilized to hamstring the unions.

In this case the Taff Vale Co. was able to sue the ASRS and was awarded £23,000 damages. The total cost to the union was £42,000 which, in 1901, was a very large sum.

The case went through three stages in the courts. In the first court the judgement went in favour of the Taff Vale Railway Co. which brought the action. In the Court of Appeal this decision was reversed, but the company took it to the House of Lords where the first judgement was upheld.

The Taff Vale case arose out of a struggle by the ASRS for wage increases against a number of railways in South Wales which were largely concerned with transporting coal. During the South African war prices had soared. But the rail bosses refused to grant wage increases.

Taff Vale's general manager, Ammon Beasley, was determined to hold out against wage increases even when other companies had granted them. He was also a tough Ca ne Mangemant are using every here who they employ for the employ SITING eg Vale. that is Cardiff. call information and TMOUSTRIAL • ANO „CREEDO* boss intent on smashing the unions. And he was far from alone.

During the 1890s a general offensive against the trade unions was mounted by the employers. Hostility to the unions was increasingly reflected in the press as well as in a number of legal decisions the Tap yale i dement. One which way for of these, in 1898, made it an offence to call someone 'blackleg': Another important development was the systematic recruitment of strikebreakers. The best known of the scab organizers was the self - styled National Free Labour Association set up by William Collinson. Beesley turned to this Association during the strike which broke out on the Taff Vale railway.

As the railwaymen became increasingly militant Beasley became still more adamant. rank-and-file militant, signalEwington of Abercynon, was victimized by the company and Beasley refused to negotiate with the union.

The treatment meted out to Ewington, who had 20 years service with serving on top of the stil any. company, satisfied wage claim put the men in militant frame of mind. Despite the fact that the ASRS officials were looking for some kind of compromise, a strike had become inevitable. Notices were handed in and the strike began on August 19, 1900.

Beasley refused to recog nize the ASRS. He sent them a wire which read: 'I am pre pared to see any reasonable number of the company's servants and give full and careful consideration but I regret that I cannot receive service: not in the officially or unofficially ally It was bitterly fought dispute. Beasley called on the National Free Labour Associa tion to supply blacklegs. They were recruited from as far away as Glasgow and Hull and were given tree beer, food anc heir fares to Cardiff. Here th union mounted a campaign to persuade them to return home and many of them got no further than Cardiff. About 400 men were recruited in all of whom only about half were actually employed.

Those that were headed off were given a square meal and a ticket home after the issues in the dispute had been explained to them. Blacklegs who were taken on proved to SOUTHEND ON SEA §APICALISM IKELAT:

SHOPSCATE STREET CI be incapable and pickets joined in to make their life difficult. One anti-scab device was heavy grease on the track at a steep incline so the locomotive's wheels could no grip. Trucks were uncoupled so that trains could not run.

The frustration of his union-busting plans infuriated Beasley. Strikers who were living in company-owned cottages were mercilessly evicted although their rents had been paid. He consulted the firm's solicitors with view to getting injunction to restrain the union officials from watching and besetting' the company's premises. Their advice was that action could not be taken against a trade union 'in its registered name'. Beasley thought, however, that given the action of the men and some statements made by the union he would have grounds for an action. In fact the way had already been prepared by • the 1896 and 1898 legal decisions already mentioned.

At the end of August a compromise settlement was reached between the ASRS and the Taff Vale Co. and work was resumed on September 1. The company did not keep its undertaking to get rid of the labour brought in during the strike and legal proceedings continued. The result, as we have seen, was a defeat for the ASRS and for the whole trade union movement which followed the court proceedings anxiously from the start.

Although the class bias of the judges could not be proved, it obviously existed and reflected a growing ruling-class hostility to trade unions which was visible in the previous decade. Now that the trade unions were growing stronger and were being extended to wider sections of workers, the relative tolerance which had existed after the legislation of the 1870s disappeared.

The trade union movement carried on a struggle for the reversal of the legal position, which could only • be done through an Act of Parliament.

But the working class also drew the lesson from the Taff Vale case that it needed a REST OF ALi ALt ender March 18 1903 SCOTLAD AND 10 rhea gren LE STREET. LONDÓN branch of the National Union of political party to defend its interests. The direct result was a big increase in support for the Labour Representation Committee which, in 1906, became the Labour Party.

By the Trade Disputes • Act of 1906, passed by the newly-elected Liberal government which depended upon working-class votes, the previous legal position was restored. Many Liberal members had been returned subject to their support for the reversal of the Taff Vale situation.

The new . Act contained a clause 'that a trade union should under no circumstances be capable of being sued in tort'. It also upheld the right to picket for the purpose either of peacefully obtaining or communicating information or of peacefully persuading any person to work or abstain from working ..

The interpretation of these rights, of course, still remained with the courts which proceeded, in subsequent judgements, whittle them down. Then, in 1909, another court decision, the Osborne judgement, laid it down that a trade union could not collect or pend money for political pur oses. This made financial sup. port for the Labour Party illegal.

This decision was reversed by the Trade Union Act of 1913 which expressly permitted a union to use its funds for political objects.

Walter V. Osborne: brous own union (ASRS) to c Illegalize political use of funds.

Banner of the Southend pht his ourt to union

Saturday