Defend the unions

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If the TUC won't lead, then a determined campaign against the Tory anti-union laws must be developed from the rank and file. SCOT of BLETCHLEY THE IT RENGIN INDUSTRIAL the canners ecoy sna a tone manstrual keslaions court, above smashed the Industrial Relations Act in can be drawn by simply stating law to which the modern Tories the main clauses in the 1927 have turned and no wonder as it Act. was the most repressive and disSympathetic strikes were criminatory law of modern made illegal; anyone leading or times. The idea behind it was to participating in an illegal' reduce the organised working strike was liable to fine or class to the level of the then imprisonment, up to two years German and Italian fascist on indictment; trade union funds Labour Front organisations. ORGANISED workers all over the country and in every aspect of industrial life must now be prepared to re-examine their commitment to their movement in the light of the latest anti-labour legislation.

Anti-labour law is a permanent feature of this society. There has never been a single day free of such law since the introduction of the Combination Acts in the eighteenth century.

In January 1983, the 108 year old Conspiracy Act was used to arrest and charge eleven hospital workers at the Victoria Hospital, Kirkaldy, Fife, for taking part in a work-in.

Not until May 1981 were two other anti-labour laws finally repealed, the Unlawful Oaths Act of 1791 and a subsequent amendment of 1812 which carried the death penalty on conviction:

Worse to The significance of the date of repeal is that the Tory government were already well into the introduction of new anti-labour law, the results of which we are now witnessing. The message is loud and clear, we are never to be free of these laws, they merely become up-dated and once established as a fact, then more and worse is added. This is the history of all anti-labour The present one is based, as was the Heath government's, on the 1927 Trades Disputes Act, that which became immediately known by all sections of the labour movement as either the Blacklegs Charter or the Revenge Act. Obvious parallels were made liable for civil damages; mass picketing was made illegal and ordinary picketing hamstrung by blanket definition of 'intimidation'; blacklegs were protected; certain unions were forbidden to affiliate to the TUC or to the Labour Party; the method of political funding was altered.

That anti-lahour law lactod 18 years before repeal by the AROUFM LUA 1945 Labour government, yet it is this 56 year old anti-labour

State unions

Today we can compare the idea of the new anti-labour law as the beginnings of a drive to emulate the Russian and Eastern block type regimented Production Committee 'unions" stripped of rights and freedoms, suitable only as advisers on the introduction of the most advantageous productive processes in the interests of maximising profits and controlling wages.

SMASH RELATIONS Faced with such laws that single out a section of society for 'special treatment', we have no alternative. Force must be met by force, discriminatory laws must, in the final analysis, be broken in order that they be removed.

Workers must recognise the dire threat to the very existence of their right to form and use organisations of their own choice for their own reasons. Resolutions of condemnation are not enough, that period has passed.

Covenant

The TUC, after the Tory government passed the 1927 anti-labour law, issued a covenant through which every trade unionist was invited to join in the opposition to its implementation Part of that Covenant was in the form of a pledge and read: *We trade unionists and members of the working class, custodians of the heritage of Freedom and Right of Association and of Organisation won by our forefathers, the Pioneers of Trade Unionism, thousands of whom underwent transportation, imprisonment, victimisation and punishments of all kinds to win that freedom, here and now pledge ourselves to safeguard that Heritage, no matter what the consequences to ourselves, with all our strength and to the utmost limit of our power."

No change Nothing has changed to alter the deep and fundamental meaning behind that Pledge. We stand on the brink of a dark age where the drive for profits once again demands the removal of freedoms and rights, pointing us directly in the path of a totalitarian state.

Should the central organisation of the trade union movement prove incapable of leading the fight, then we must take up that fight and form an organisation comprising all sections of the labour movement.

Certainly we must begin right now to demand the removal of the anti-labour law, that alone demands a broadly based movement from every union and from the Labour Party, but it is of crucial importance that the NGA and the NUJ who are the first in the front line, must be supported at all costs, both with numbers on the picket lines and with finance.

walgest IN AN action thought to be without legal precedent government employees at the Inland Revenue - members of the Inland Revenue Staff Federation -have taken out a writ of summons against the Board of Inland Revenue, This is in response to the suspension of 90 staff in Solihull - one of the seven tax officers involved in a pilot scheme -for refusing to work new equipment which fully computerises the Pay-As-You-Earn tax collection system.

The action came to a head when about 450 members of the IRSF in Wolverhampton voted by a three-to-one majority in a secret ballot last week to "work normally" - defined by the union as not operating the newly-installed computers due to commence formally on the first working day of the New Year - January 3.

The basic issue in dispute over the introduction of the £200 million system is the board's refusal to conclude a new technology agreement which includes a - no-redundancy clause - savings of £50 million are expected but at the cost of 4,000 Revenue jobs.

The writ is due to be heard on Wednesday (January 11) in the High Court and could become an important test case of laws governing contracts of employment and on the introduction of computer-based technology. Shelter, the homeless persons pressure group for more and

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T.... BRANCH SYHENG DISIRICI

against the Tory anti-union laws By S.T. Ruggle