A YEAR FOR TRADE-UNION FREEDOM

RMTnews :: january 2007 :: www.rmt.org.uk 8 R MT has started the year by demanding that 2007 is the year in which trade unions begin to win their freedom from more than a quarter century of anti-union laws. Exactly a century after parliament ruled that ‘an action against a trade union…shall not be entertained in any court,’ RMT has renewed its call for the restoration of the trade-union rights envisaged by the framers of the 1906 Trade Disputes Act. “A century ago even Tories accepted that the courts were no place to drag trade unionists involved in an industrial dispute,” RMT general secretary Bob Crow said. “But today’s employers have been handed so many legal traps that any union standing up for its members’ rights and jobs is hauled in and out of court like a yo-yo,” he said. TAFF VALE JUDGMENT At the turn of the last century the union’s forebears were sued by the Taff Vale Railway Company and fined £23,000 in damages simply for exercising their right to strike. It was the massive upsurge of protest and political organisation that followed the vicious Taff Vale judgment that forced parliament to accept that unions should have legal immunity from employers seeking damages from workers in dispute with them. The Trade Disputes Act is still theoretically there, but after nine lots of Tory anti-union laws chipped away at it there are now countless ways that employers can drag unions into court for daring to stand up for workers’ rights. FIGHTING FOR RIGHTS Today the union is building massive backing for the TUC’s campaign for a Trade Union Freedom Bill, to help right the wrongs of the last 25 years and level the playing field. The Trade Union Freedom Bill would establish as law basic trade union rights, including the right to strike and take solidarity action, better protection for striking workers, fairer balloting and industrial-action notice procedures, restricting the use of injunctions by employers, and preventing the use of replacement labour during strikes. However, the Blair government seems more interested in doing a state- funding deal with the Tories that would end the Labour-union link and keep union rule-books under legal siege, and is even egging the European Court of Justice to rule that there is no such thing as the right to strike. Nonetheless, most Labour back-benchers have signed up to the idea of a bill that would enshrine basic trade union rights into law, and publication of the bill by John McDonnell MP should be the trigger for a mighty campaign behind it. A YEAR FOR TRADE-UNION FREE On centenary of the 1906 Trade Disputes Act, 2007 must be the year of trade-union freedom Early Day Motion 532 TRADE UNION FREEDOM BILL CAMPAIGN Tabled by John McDonnell get your MP to sign That this House recognises that free and independent trade unions are a force for good in UK society around the world and are vital to democracy; welcomes the positive role modern unions play in providing protection for working people and winning fairness at work; notes the 1906 Trades Disputes Act granted unions the legal freedom to take industrial action; regrets that successive anti-union legislation has meant that trade union rights are now weaker than those introduced by the 1906 Trades Disputes Act; therefore welcomes and supports the TUC campaign for a Trade Union Freedom Bill whose principles include better protection for workers, such as those sacked by Gate Gourmet in 2005, the simplification of ballot procedures and to allow limited supportive action, following a ballot, in specific circumstances; and therefore urges the Government to bring forward legislation to address these proposals.