Tories Slam into

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"The compulsory enforcement of the closed shop by parliamentary statute is the greatest disaster which has befallen liberty in my lifetime."

Paul Johnson, New Statesman, September 1976.

(a) not to have an application for membership of a specified trade union unreasonably refused; (b) not to be unreasonably expelled from a (4) A complaint may be presented to an industrial tribunal against a trade union by a person that an application by him for membership of the union has been unreasonably refused, or that he has been unreasonably expelled from the union, in contravention of subsection (2) above.

(5) On a complaint under this section, the question whether a trade union had acted reasonably or unreasonably shall be determined in accordance with equity and the substantial merits of the case, and in particular a union shall not be regarded as having acted reasonably only because it has acted in accordance with the requirements of its rules, or unreasonably only because it has (58A) - (1) A union membership agreement shall be taken for the purposes of section 58(3C) to have been approved in relation to the employees d any class of employer if a ballot has been held on the question whether the agreement should apply in relation to them and not less than 80 per cnt of those entitled to vote in the ballot voted in favour of the agreement's application.

(3) A ballot under this section shall be so conducted as to secure that, as far as reasonably practicable, all those entitled to vote have an opportunity of voting, and of doing so in secret.

The recognition that the individual worker by himself is weak in any argument with his boss has always been the basis for fighting for 100% trade union membership.

And the other side of this coin is the deep contempt and hostility that trade unionists feel to those workers who take all the benefits of pay, conditions and security that the union fights for yet refuse to join, to assist bodily and financially the organisation that protects them against the ravages of the capitalist market.

The aim of the Conservative government. with its Employment. Bill is to give every encouragement to these backward elements in the working class.

It does not outlaw the closed shop and in that. sense it is approaching the question of undermining the organisation on the shop floor with a greater degree of subtlety than the previous Conservative administration.

(Under the 1971 Fair Deal at Work' Act a closed shop or "agency shop' could be run for workers after they had started work but not before.

Register

However, only unions who had registered under the Natiohal Industrial Relations Court were allowed to set up an agency shop and as Registration meant accepting all the repres sive legislation that the Act directed against the unions, most unions refused to register).

At present it is possible to refuse to join a union because of religious conviction.

This exception which unions already cater for can be used as a cover by many people.

does not just apply to religions that expressly forbid their faithful to be members of a trade union.

For instance there, are certain Christian sects like the Exclusive Brethren (a kind of "spartacist' split-off from the Plymouth Brethren) who will quote St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians in the Bible which sternly says "be not unequally yoked with non-believers".

This advice, clearly a blank cheque to every sectarian, is at least consistently carried through, not stopping at trade union organisation but embracing every kind of organisation; the family, husbands, wives and children are all relations that are severed or soldered on the basis of programme.

The law at present also grants exemption to those whose fellow worshippers are active trade unionists.

Exemption An Anglican or a Catholic could claim exemption from trade union membership despite the fact that those religious organisations not only don't proscribe trade union activity amongst their flock but on occasion actively encourage it.

Recently a union called upon the services of the Industrial Chaplain to the Archbishop of Coventry to investigate the depth of religious conviction of some twenty workers who were trying to avoid joining a closed shop.

The unwordly Chaplain (less obsessed about declining membership and disappearing tithes than some union bureaucrats) only claimed a tiny minority for his celestial general-secretary!

The new proposals of James Prior's anti-union laws would greatly extend this area of religious exemption which is anyway considerably vague.

He intends to allow workers the right to refuse to join a union on grounds of "deeply held personal conviction' 'Personal conviction' Even vaguer than the religious exemption it is a "personal conviction" that a worker could have not only against unions in general but any union in particular.

So that if a worker thought that the GMWU was becoming too militant (no matter how democratically its militancy had been achieved) or if another worker thought that the TGWU was becoming too moderate (no matter how undemocratically its spinelessness had been secured) that worker's hostility to militancy or moderation could be regarded under the Employment Bill as amounting to a "deeply held personal conviction" that would justify him or her leaving ¿the union in This provision is specifically intended to undermine the effectiveness of any progressive developments in any union.

For its intention is to give a green light to all those backward elements who want to oppose, flout or otherwise ignore leftwing policies successfully fought for in the union.

Any resolution that becomes policy in the unions; equal pay, opposition to wage control, racialist discrimination and legislation such as immigration control, British troops out of Ireiand,, greater accountability of union leaders to the members, etc., will inevitably have its opponents.

Legal cover

Rather than accept the will of the majority this extension of grounds for union exemption is designed to give a legal cover for all those who wish to sabotage the carrying out of agreed policy.

Having made it easy for any one who disagrees with any union policy to walk out of the union, Prior quite logically has also to clear the ground to allow such scabs to then walk into any union they wish to.

If a person for whatever "deep personal conviction" he or she 'suddenly' acquired decided to leave the AUEW and join the TGWU the latter union would normally refuse to take such a person into membership if the two unions had a closed shop agreement inside the company.

Under this proposed Bill however, a tribunal could regard the refusal of admission by the TGWU as "unreasonable". Not only could such a worker then claim compensation from an employer who was honouring the closed shop agreement in his factory but he could involve the TGWU, in this example, in his compensation claim as well.

In determining whether the union was acting "unreasonably" the Act specifically instructs Tribunals to ignore union rule books, constitutions and agreements that they have with other unions.

Senile

Instead the Tribunal, (whose normal composition is an employers' representative, bent or senile trade unionist (freauentlv both) and thirdlv as chairman an independent guardian of the interests of capital), will judge "unreasonable" in accordance with "the Where the courts force admission of such a scab upon a union, compensation of up to €9,850 can be claimed for the period the union's action kept him waiting while compensation for someone who is still waiting for admission will be £16,090.

This attack on the closed shop brings into the light of day something that is normally hidden and obscured in capitalist class society.

Bourgeois law based as it is on the protection of private property legislates on the assumption that the labourcapital contract is a free and equal one.

the employer and the employee only dispose of what they rightfully own. The former brings his capital to market, the latter his labour power.

No compulsion to either side forces one into a contract with the other.

Right to Yet while this Act gives individual workers the right to sue trade unions who refuse them membership there is no equivalent right for workers to sue employers who refuse to take on trade union members!

To form a closed shop after this Bill becomes law (Friday) will indeed be quite an achievement.

It can only be done by securModern NOW AVAILABLE Chis new Socialist Press Pamphlet contains articles by Terry Eagleton on marxiet theoreticians from the time of the Comintern to the present iny-Lukecs, Korach, Gramaci, Benjamin, Marcuse, Sartre and Althusser. 65p including P&P from WSL, BM Box 5277, London WCIV 6xx, Secon of arti JACK EXTRACTS (2) Every person who employment to which have the right:

specified trade union.

JACK BURNETT

ing in a secret ballot an 80% vote in favour of all those who would be eligible to vote.

This is quite a cheeky FROM acted in contravention of them. demand when you consider that the Government's mandate for this and other reactionary legislation it is hoping to impose on the country is derived from less than 33% of those eligible to vote.

The attack on the closed shop is far indeed from having the unanimous support of all employers.

Firms, especially the multinationals who need continuous production to feed their huge markets, genérate sufficient profits to be able to make concessions to their workers and in return they have found through experience that many union officials, convenors and shop steward committees constitute a far more efficient police force than their own foremen and supervisors.

For Margaret Thatcher and her team it is these very cosy relationships that symbolise the diseased and stricken conditions of Britain's domestic industry.

The strong medicine she wishes to administer has therefore no place for those "sweetheart" agreements, those corrupt and venal 'understandings' so eagerly sought by employer and union alike.

Given the close bonds (perhaps chains is a better word) that developed between unions, employers and the state after the second world war any real shake up of British capital cannot also avoid also having a purgative: effect on the trade unions in which the fight for new leadership can emerge at the centre of political and trade union struggles.

BILL.

is, or is seeking to be, in this section applies shall

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