[First of all, your strike will be. open…]

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First of all, your strike will be. open to legal. action unless it is wholly or mainly connected with one or more of the following:

*Terms and conditions employment.

*Physical work.

*Sacking failing hire a worker.

*Suspension.

*Work düties or distribution of work. outcome of that dispute.

So NUJ members at Reuters refusing to handle copy in solidarity with workers overseas last year would be taking unlawful action. So would the Massey Ferguson workers at Banner Lane who blacked parts connected with the Ursus plant near Warsaw in solidarity with Solidarnosc.

Secondly, you would not be protected from legal penalties if you take industrial action when there is no direct dispute between a group of workers and their employer, So dockers who black ships where employers are not paying the minimum rates (as the International Transport Federation asks them to) would be liable to be hauled before the courts if the crews themselves were too intimidated to take action.

Thirdly you will be open to legal action where your dispute is a dispute between workers and workers and not a dispute between workers and employeis.;

Now in most demarcatior disputes, or situations such as the Isle of Grain, there will be involvement by the employer - you can't say it's simply worker against worker.

But this definition places the final decision in the hands of the judges. And they've come up with some amazing interpretations the past.

OK. But if your strike is connected "wholly or mainly» with one of the issues in your list you are home and dry legally? - Far from it. Even if you fall within the list you are still in trouble if your action is unlawful secondary action.

If you are on strike and you approach trade unionists at another company and ask them not to handle goods for your employer, then the judges say that in most cases legally you are inducing those workers to break their contracts with their employer.

They are paid to handle your employer's work. Not only are they breaking their contracts of employment; they are ensuring that the commercial contract between their boss and your boss is also broken.

You are not only inducing breaches of contracts of employment, you are inducing breaches of commercial contracts as well.

Of course you need to do this to win your dispute. And until the Tories came along, the law said that you were protected if you did so.

But the Tories don't want you to win your disputes. So they now say that it is unlawful for you to interfere with the commercial contracts of an employar who is not a party to your dispute, through interfering with the contracts of employment of his employees, unless a) that employer is a customer or supplier of your boss; b) your purpose is to disrupt the supply of goods or services to your boss; c) your action in asking for blacking is likely to achieve that purpose.

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