MONDAY'S COURT decision to seize the funds of SOGAT shows just what a terrible price labour movement is now paying for the failure of the TUC to defend the NGA over Warrington and the NUM during the miners strike. It also shows 'moderation' is no safeguard from Tory laws whatever.
Brenda Dean and the SOGAT leadership are no Arthur Scargill and the miners. They attempted to comply with une union law on ballots. but une point is, as Brenda Dean pointed out, there is no way an effective trade union dispute can be run and remain within Tory laws.
Human beings now being treated like cattle by Thatcher. makes no difference if they want to work or not, show solidarity or not. une No, they are just objects to be ordered around under a slaves charter.
The writs are already spreading out to the other unions. The NGA is coming up after SOGAT - and the last legal attack on the NGA, over the dispute with Eddie Shah at Warrington, cost the union £2 million. The UCW has already had a writ issued against it. The TGWU is also in the firing line. And lest we forget it the entire assets of the NUM are still held by a receiver.
It now appears that judges, and lawyers, hot their members, are to be the people who determine the policies and activities of trade unions. The retreats which have been made since Warrington have not safeguarded the ting legal attacks. solidarity elsewhere.
Jobs of print the bring the press barons to heel. trade unions one bit from the mounquestration flying Confronted with the determination of the bosses, backed up by their courts, the labour movement has no other option than to step up the action. That means massive pickets at and deepening industrial First and foremost, the basis for this must be laid by the print unions themselves. Confining the strike to which titles disasterous strategy for protecting the workers. Other newspapers such as the Express and Financial Times have already made clear that they too intend to travel the Wapping road. An all-out TUC directive. Fleet Street strike is the only way to Above all, with the threats of seall around, the TUC cannot attord to maintain the of 'remain within the law' position it has adopted - and which it intends to deepen. Last Wednesday it ducked the issue with Hammond and the electricians: that of stopping EETPU scabs from crossing the picket lines. ped. The general council voted down the resolution from Knapp and Buckton would have instructed the EETPU to tell its members to do just that. Instead it directed the union to ...let its members know that they were taking other union members jobs!
No wonder Eric Hammond has agreed to abide by the terms of the it is a directive without any teeth. That means one which capitulates to the EETPU's laws. own brand of union-busting and drags the TUC further down the road accepting the anti-union legislation. At the coming special TUC conference it is proposed to go further down the road of complying with the law by accepting government cash for ballots. This must be stopMurdoch and the courts have shown their readiness to go all the wa in their battle to destroy the print unions. Now the labour movement must show it is prepared to go just as far in defending them. The response to the use of the Tory courts against the NGA and SOGAT must be to step up all solidarity action with the print workers and for the TUC to take national action against the anti-union
Socialist Action 14 February 1986