The main aim of the Tories' Employment Bill is quite simply to destroy the ability of trade unions to win a strike Key among its provisions is an attempt to curb 'secondary picketing' used so successfully in the 1974 miners' strike (that brought the Heath government down) or by the steelworkers today. Under Prior's Bill, workers will only be able to picket outside their place of work -picketing of suppliers. customers or other depots being made legal In order to give the Bill bite -and intimidate union activists - Prior proposes that illegal pickets be taken to court and sued for damages by companies who can prove business has been affected.
SOLIDARITY It is not only secondary pick.
ets, however, that the Tories want to eliminate. Equally high on their list of priorities is solidarity strikes. Under the Bill, the support of the miners for the steelworkers this yearor the support of wide layers of trade unionists for the Grun.
wick workers last year - could become illegal The Bill leaves the decision on this question up to the courts who will have to decide whether solidarity actions are likely to 'further' the dispute or not. Considering the anti-union bias of the Tory courts - as in Denning s recent decis ion against the steelworker.
there is little doub: what te outcome will be DEMOCRACY Other provisions in the Bili.
while less important, are also designed to weaken union power.
Closed shops, for example, will only be allowed to exist after 80% of the workforce vote in favour in a ballot.
Similarly, funds will be provided by the government to allow 'secret ballots' on all major calls by the union for strike action. The aim of this is clearly to erode the democ. racy of mass meetings by 'isolating' union members & thus opening them up to the prop aganda of the mass media and the bosses.
RIGHTS It is not just union rights as a whole, however, which the Bill seeks to whittle away. It will doubly affect certain strata such as women members. Al present, all women are guaranteed maternity leave and the automatic right to re-employment afterwards.
The new provisions indicate that women will have to give a much longer written notice if they wish their jobs back and. even then, will not be guaranteed them. Small firms, in particular, will be entitled to offer 'suitable alternatives' which, if not accepted, could leave women without any employment at all.
GAINS It is clear that the thrust of the Bill as a whole is to render unions ineffective in fighting back against the offensive being currently launched by the Tory goverinent Whether or not the government Is allowed to get awav with it. and implement any section of it against union members - depends on how seriously the labour move. movement campaigns to stop the Tories in their tracks
Socialist Action