PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

President’s column RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: may 2011 :: RMTnews 23 TORIES FLY ANTI- STRIKE KITES Last month rightwing Tory MP Dominic Raab proposed a new law to impose further restrictions on the right to strike in Britain. According to Raab, if a trade union wants to strike in transport or ‘essential services’, it must not only win a majority in a secr et postal ballot as at present, it should also have to win a majority of all those eligible to vote. At present, UK law requires a union to win a simple majority in a ballot, a standard method in any organisation. For example, at the last general election, Dominic Raab polled 32,134 votes in a constituency of 76,962 voters, more than a quarter of whom did not bother to vote. His party polled 10.7 million votes nationally, with their Liberal Democrat mates polling 6.8 million, in a UK electorate of 45 million people. Neither Mr Raab, nor his party, nor their governing coalition partners would have been elected under rules he proposes for trade unionists. Although Raab’s particular kite failed to fly, it is the opening salvo in a declaration of war by the ConDems against the trade union fightback against the effects of unprecedented and vicious attacks on jobs and public services. Successive UK governments have breached ILO and European Conventions to which UK is signatory, which define strike action as a fundamental human right. The former Conservative government’s Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 required unions to inform employers of the identity of individual union members involved in strike action, even though employers can seek damages against employees for strike action. The Labour government’s Employment Relations Act 1999 replaced this rule with a general requirement to provide employers with sufficient information to enable them to identify which employees were on strike, in order to make “suitable arrangements”. Judges have interpreted this requirement such that unions must now provide information to an employer in the form of a matrix or spreadsheet showing numbers of union members balloted and called on to strike in every affected workplace and job category. Since 2009 employers have targeted this legal requirement in particular for challenges aimed at obtaining High Court injunctions against lawful strike action. The bosses legal strategy has been to persuade judges that unions have failed to supply sufficiently accurate information. It can easily be imagined that in the vast majority of industrial disputes the precise numbers of union members employed in various workplaces or job titles are extremely detailed and complicated. High Court judges had granted injunctions banning strike action by RMT members on Docklands Light Railway after finding union strike notices "defective" and union explanations of how they ensured reliable membership data for balloting and engaging in strike action "inadequate". However last March the Court of Appeal in London overturned those injunctions and comprehensively disposed of arguments previously used in the High Court to justify them. The Appeal Court also confirmed that international law does confer a right to strike under International Labour Organisation Conventions 98 and 151. In addition, the European Convention on Human Rights upholds the right to strike as an element of Article 11(1) on freedom of association. Such an authoritative judgment was made at a time when this government is seeking to destroy nearly a million public sector jobs and a similar number of private sector jobs through cuts and outsourcing, while attacking wages, pensions and public services. The judgment was, therefore, not only a victory for RMT but also a massive victory for seven million trade unionists in this country. It also means the policy of coordinated strike action to defeat the cuts agreed at last year's British TUC Conference can now become a practical reality. Alex Gordon and bar charts - not my cup of tea, but understandable if they're to meet the everyday needs of what is being asked of them. So I went to a UN school. Every 3rd youngster seemed to be in an F.C. Barcelona shirt. I made the link between Barcelona sponsorship of UNICEF. I wondered, will I see a Boro shirt! “Hey mister, what's your name" they shout, “Garry!" and it echoes back at you as they all say it, I played football with these lads, two lamp-posts for goal, pot-shots, heading, juggling, back-heels and mazy dribbles, the youngsters all laughing, enjoying themselves under the scorching mid-day sun..and then the serious side, these kids were 2nd-and 3rd- generation refugees, living in a refugee camp, they have lived here all of their lives and their parents had been here since 1967, one-room housing, rubbish and waste everywhere, to my Brighton seaside nostrils the stench was overbearing and I shook my head in disgust - a dead emaciated cat was strewn in a gutter, it was the sort of place were even the rats would move out from. This is the very real day to day face of Palestine and its people. What the Palestinians said to me time after time was that they didn't want aid, they didn't want food parcels, they didn't want war, they didn’t want bullets and they didn’t want bandages. What they did want was their country and land, the right to govern themselves, to raise taxes and have schools and hospitals, a police force from the people for the people, a airport, a railway, tourists, free elections and jobs, jobs and more jobs with trade unions looking after them. I don’t buy into the Israeli occupation and that’s why in order to do my little bit, I’m boycotting Israeli goods and specifically those that are grown on the West Bank by Israeli companies and settlers...join me.