Q.C. DENOUNCES TORY COURT

Court was accused of wielding a : was accused or wielding a Dig tory nammer rory hammer against the unions before the s before the Court of Appeal yesterday.

The charge came on the third day of the rail unions' battle against an order forcing a ballot on their members.

Morris Finer, QC, for the white collar union TSSA, challenged the court's impartiality. The government, First to sit-in in the greater Manchester area and still going for the full demandsthe men at the Bredbury steelworks maintain a 24-hour occupation of the Stockport.plant. . he said, had 'put a hammer in hands of the National Indus trial Relations Court.

If the hammer descends, muscle which moves it is largely, and almost exclusively, the muscle of government,' he said.

He pointed to the extraordinary nature of the case which dealt not with a battle between employer and employees, but employees and gorernment under an emergency procedure.

He also highlighted the unique powers of the court over law and industrial life.

It is a very unusual thing in our law to have a special court created for a very particular Act of Parliament. It might make some lawyers think there is a good deal in the old system of keeping courts general!

Continuing his ten-hour address, he went on to imply the NIRC had a Hours retreat but Bredbury fight on OVER 900 workers at GKN's Bredbury steel works in Stockport, Lancs, yesterday held firm on the three points of the engineering industry pay claim in greater Manchester. This was despite the set-back to the district-wide action which came on Monday when a mass meeting of shop stewards agreed that normal working could be resumed in Manchester factories if management offered pay increases and longer holidays.

This amounted to a retreat on the key demand of the claim for a shorter working week-one on which the employers in the area have been sticking firm.

A spokesman for the Bredbury men-who began the action ten weeks ago when they occupied their plant-said: 'We are sticking it out, we've been battling this out too long to accept the firm's latest offer of £3.50.' The spokesman said there was 'bitter feeling' among the men over a circular sent out by the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers' executive which made it clear that the hours demand was no longer a top priority.

This was a major factor in persuading shop stewards to adopt the 'new 'tactic' of allowing a resumption of normal working where firms offered substantial wage increases and longer annual holidays.

The demand for shorter hours will still be pressed by an overtime ban-but this is hardly a threat to Manchester employers.

An overtime ban operated throughout the district before ...one thing is clear. It is ir nevitable when you create a special court that the court seems to get a v ested interest in the Act. And if the 1 Act is one which happens to embody a i very highly controversial policy, the court almost inevitably is put in a situ lation in which from the public poi nt of view, it seems to be, as it committed.' Mr Finer warned of the grave nature of the decisions the cour t was making. The Act, he said, hac 1 virtually been created overnight.

It is not an organic part ol our law. It has grown very little. It contains an enormously complex s t of laws which have been created virtually overnight with very little torical precedent.

It is of utmost importance these first cases are dealt with ine case, being neara belore TLA L. L Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning, Lord Justice Buckley and Lord Justice Roskill, is expected to end tomorrow the dispute began on March 27 and some plants on short time anyway.

Union officials in the area who have campaigned in the past against any resumption of normal work without a concession on hours, say they had little choice in adopting the new course.

The AUEW circular, the settlement in the shipbuilding industry on wages steered through by boilermakers' leader Danny McGarvey, and similar agreements in parts of the British Steel Corporation and ICI have all weakened the original threepoint claim.

AUEW district organizer for Manchester, John Tocher, said yesterday that the battle for shorter hours had not been abandoned. He said the number of deals signed by. firms which included concessions on pay, hours and holidays had reached 45.

The Manchester action - part of the original national engineers' pay claim—began with a districtwide ban on piecework. This led to sit-in strikes by workers when management attempted to lock them out of their factories.