Guinea— Pigs for Tebbit?
Socialist Organiser1982 1982-05-20Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 7 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 7
by Wendy IF Tebbit's Employment Bill were law now, much if not all of the NHS action to win the full 12% claim could be unlawful. And the effectiveness of a co-ordinated national campaign could be undermined by the clauses allowing bosses to selectively sack groups of workers.
The government decreed its second successive de facto pay policy for the public sector back in September. This 4% 'guideline' was an overt political attack on the public sector - part and parcel of job cuts, privatisation and Heseltine's local government policies.
Any action taken even in pursuit of a wage claim under these circumstances - where a strike poses a direct and immediate challenge to government policies — coula under Tebbit be interpreted by a court as 'not wholly or mainly connected" with a trades dispute, despite being about pay.
_Leaflets Any leaflets, protest, ete criticising the 4% guideline could be deemed partly political, and any industrial action would therefore be outside the protection of the law.
The threat of massive fines or jail would hang over those refusing to stop the action, if ordered to do in jeopardy.
The new law also makes it easier for bosses to get rid of troublesome militant sectors.
A dispute such as in the NHS provides a field-day for divide-and-rule tactics: Under the law, groups of strikers up and down the country, taking part in the same dispute, could be sacked, while others could be kept on. The screws would be on right from the start.
The threat of such blatantly unfair discrimination (the existing law permits sackings but says all strikers must be treated the same) could seriously threaten the solidarity of a national strike in the health service and undermine its success before it even started.
Attempts could be made by union officials to use the law to frustrate and bridle the more militant hospitals. Nurses, who enjoy a relative degree of nublic svmpathy, might be kept on whereas hospital porters or administrators could be sacked. Even those not on strike but taking part in other forms of action could be sacked.
No-one sacked would have recourse to unfair dismissal hearings.
Cominine ACT NOW Mobising Defence of AGAINICA Rights "Murthan Tebbers legal "manety" from a sude