The lessons of the Heath government THE TORIES learned of the 1971 Heations Act. Then they introduced a batвсту of legislation the Industrial Relations confronting the unions in every area. The Act collapsed in the face of massive working class resistance to the arrest of the striking dockers -the Pentonville 5.
The new approach was much more careful and piecemeal. It aimed at a *It is true that any union effectively controlling all potential workers of a firm or industry can exercise almost unlimited pressure on the employer and that, particularly where a great amount of capital has been invested in specialised equipment, such a union can practically expropriate the owner and command nearly the whole return of his enterprise.' F.A. Hayek — the brains behind Tebbit's boots. James Prior, Mrs Thatcher's first union basher. Prior a man of the people lives in @ humble 15th century 380-acre farmhouse with a magnificent moat.
is needed to get a closed shop.
Tebbit takes over the Industrial special Courts Employment Protection Act. virtually inter-union disputes for individuals to refuse to join a union in closed shops, an 80 per cent yes-vote Prior was replaced by Tebbit who set to work with a will on the strangely named Its main provisions were to limit the right to strike to worker/employer matters thus outlawing actions against government policy, sympathy actions, strikes force sub-contractors to join unions.
Unions made liable for damages of drive the Labour Party into bankruptcy. Norman Tebbit — a real Thatcher favourite. He wants to break the unions and Party are unions.
sent fence freedom. are in in the EEPTU AUEW TASS. contracting in. BOTH the Tories and the Liberal/SDP Alliance think the unions are too political. Both their manifestos claim that political funding and the political levy of the Labour abused by the They argue that the presystem whereby individuals have to 'contract out' of political payments is not democratic and an ofagainst personal The Labour Partv receives three quarters of its total funds from the trade union members via the political levy. At present 82 per cent of trade unionists contract in The lowest numbers contracting out the unskilled manual trade umons. Less lan s per cent opt out ll the T&GWU and NUPE and 4 per cent in the NUR as compared to 25 per cent and 43 per cent in But between 1927 and 1946 trade unionists had to invidually 'contract in' to paying the political levy. Wide variations continued to persist with 77 per cent of the NUM, 37 percent of the AUEW and 15 per cent of the EEPTU But the Labour Party lost enormous funds as overall numbers con-
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BY TH VICTORIA R