Yet again the bosses’ judicial system has intervened to stop a union
taking industrial action. This time they have forced the RMT to cancel
their strike action due to take place this week.
It is now generally understood that in any injuction brought by the
bosses against a union trying to take action, the judges will always
rule in favour of the bosses. Ironically, no judge has ever felt the
need to support workers who have suffered job losses thanks to the whims
of a few City gents in a boardroom somewhere. Now we know what side the
law really is on. Once again the call must be: repeal the ANTI trade
union laws!
We can do no better than to reproduce a letter from John McDonnell MP
which was published in the Guardian letters page of April 3rd.
The media treatment of RMT and Bob Crow over the last 48 hours over
the Network Rail strike ballot has been the worst example of a concerted
campaign of media bias against a trade union that we have seen since
the 1980s miners’ strike. John Humphrys’s interview of Bob Crow, with
his references to ballot-rigging, and the BBC’s subsequent headline of
“RMT’s Bob Crow denies ballot rigging”, was that disgusting classic of
the old hack lawyer’s tactic of asking the defendant: “When did you stop
beating your wife?”
Even the Guardian’s editorial (2 April) ignorantly weighed in with
“No union that conducts its ballots properly according to the reasonable
requirements of the law … would be in danger of being injuncted.” This
reference to “reasonable requirements of the law” is patent rubbish. To
hold a ballot the union must construct and supply the employer with a
detailed and complex matrix of information setting out which members it
is balloting, their job titles, grades, departments and work locations.
The employer is under no obligation to co-operate with the union to
ensure this is accurate. If there is the slightest inaccuracy, even
where it did not affect the result, the ballot is open to being
challenged by the employer and quashed by the courts.
There can be no question of the union ballot-rigging or interfering
in the balloting process because it is undertaken by an independent
scrutineer, usually the Electoral Reform Society, and all ballot papers
are sent by post to the homes of the members being balloted, and
returned to the ERS for counting. The union at no time handles the
ballot papers.
On at least four occasions in the last three years I have tried in
parliament on behalf of RMT and other TUC-affiliated unions to amend
employment law to require employers to co-operate with unions in the
balloting process so these problems can be overcome. Employers’
organisations, the Conservatives and the government have all opposed
this reform.
The result is not fewer strikes but a deteriorating industrial
relations climate as people become increasingly angry that their
democratic wishes are frustrated by one-sided anti-trade-union laws.
