Clamour for inquiry into trade unions: could make strikes illegal

AFTER the Rookes v.

• Barnard case, the capitalist press, noting the judgment with quiet satisfaction, began to campaign for a reform of the law affecting trade unions.

Then, at the end of July, the House of Lords delivered a judgement against the Watermen's Union in the Stratford v. Lindley case. The clamour has, therefore, been renewed and every industrial correspondent, hand on heart, has been complaining of the uncertainty which surrounds the trade unions' legal position.

Leaders of the trade union movement itself, especially on the left wing, have been agitating for a swift amendment of the law by Parliament, that is, by the Tory government. This government, whilst refusing this demand, has proposed, with a tirelessness which even their own supporters find irksome, an inquiry.

Their probable successors, the Labour leadership, have maintained a discreet, but nonetheless conspicuous silence.

Strike threat

The Rookes case concerned a certain Mr. Rookes. Rookes was a draughtsman employed by BOAC in a drawing office with a registered 100 per cent trade union membership and until November 1955 was a member of the Association of Engineering and Shipbuilding Draughtsmen (AESD).

He resigned from the AESD over an internal AESD policy decision affecting British Overseas Airways draughtsmen and as a result the other members passed unanimously a resolution indicating that unless_ Rookes was lemoved from the drawing office a withdrawal of labour by AESD members would take place.

BOAC at first suspended him and subsequently dismissed him —quite legally within the contract between them.

He then sued the Union for damages (loss of wages and prospects, damage to reputation and the like), and eventually after a long battle in the courts, the House of Lords found in his favour.

The general opinion of the capitalist press was that, although the case raised the whole question of the future of trade unionism in the 20th century, the decision had no far-reaching consequences.

In this they were joined by the Tory government and, it is said, by Silkin QC of the well-known Labour family (he was Rookes' leading counsel).

Trade Act A leading official of the Union, however, commented that the judgment had driven 'a coach and four through the 1906 Trade Disputes Act which afforded the trade union movement considerable legal status.

The Judges had said that because the union had a 'no strike' agreement with the employers, the three officials concerned were acting unlawfully in threatening to induce their members to break their contracts of employment.

One of their Lordships, however, pointed out that workers broke these contracts every time they struck. They did not give notice of their intention to leave their jobs altogether, but only to withdraw their labour until such

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This was recognised, he added, by many firms which threaten to send strikers their cards and so terminate their employment. (Vickers Armstrongs at Barrow tried this two or three weeks ago.)

So one question left unanswered by the judgment is whether it is relevant only to the particular circumstances of the case, or whether it had widespread effect.

Contract broken Are union officials who threaten a strike always threatening to induce an unlawful breach of the prospective strikers' contracts of employment?

Many trade unionists fear that if it is left to the judiciary to work out the answer by trying yet more anti-union actions, a position will be reached where ill industrial action is illega ind can be penalised The Judges have already shown some enterprise in this respect by their handling of the Stratford v. Lindley case.

Stratford's a firm of barge hirers and repairers have a subsidiary called Bowker and King. This firm employed a majority of Transport and General Workers' Union members, but also a few belonging to the Watermen, Lightermen and Bargees' Union.

When Bowkers came to a separate agreement with the Transport and General Workers' Union on union conditions, after refusing at least two joint approaches by both unions, the Watermen declared Stratford's work 'black'.

Mr. and Mrs. Stratford, the real controllers of the two businesses then started legal action against the union claiming that the embargo was unlawful and was costing them €1,000 a week.

Pending the trial they successfully sought a High Court injunction to restrain the union from executing its ban; although the Court of Appeal reversed that decision, the House of Lords this July upheld it.

The Union's defence was that it had acted in 'contemplation of or in furtherance of' a trade dispute. No dispute The 1906 Act protected unions from claims arising out of actions which would otherwise be unlawful if they did not arise out of a trade dispute.

The Judges pretty well agreed that if there had been a trade dispute, the defence would have been sound; but by a process which defies intelligence, they held that there was no such

dispute.

In other words they unde mined the protection of the A by skating round it.

The effect of these two cases could be to open the gates to anybody who considers that a strike has caused or will cause him damage.

Even the right-wing leaderships in the unions will not be exempt from bankruptcy and prison, and that is why Woodcock, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress has asked for immediate law reform.

Woodcock, of course, represents a bureaucratic layer whose whole way of life depends on the continued existence of a trade union movement.

To a certain extent these people will defend the unions and their own vested interests.

Whether they want socialist militant trade unionism, however, is quite another matter. The danger in the present situation is that some sort of deal will be made between all the right-wing bureaucratic elements in the trade unions and the capitalist class (with the next Labour government acting the

honest broker), which will allow certain types of industrial action on clearly defined, yet limited bases, but which will restrict just as definitively, the real fighting power of the working class.

Labour voters have the right to know at this stage exactly what the next Labour government intends to do. Appeals for quiet unity until after October will not do.

Since Gunter's statement on the trade unions, the Labour leaders have remained so silent on this question that even George Woodcock cannot fathom their attitude which should be one of complete support for the entire trade union movement.

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