AFFRONT TO DEMOCRACY

Wednesday 17. February 2010

Furious port workers' union leaders on Wednesday tore into yet another unelected judge's ruling to outlaw a strike, branding the decision in favour of the bosses as "an affront to democracy."

Presiding over the case at the High Court, Justice Sweeney lost no time in siding with executives at the Milford Haven Port in south Wales to grant them an injunction against Unite members walking out on strike to save their pensions.

Some 50 crucial harbour pilots and launch crew members voted for the 48-hour stoppage, which was due to begin at dawn today, in a fightback against bosses' attempts to raise the retirement age and cut their final-salary pension scheme.

But Justice Sweeney justified tearing up the workers' democratic ballot by claiming that Unite's notice of industrial action did not comply "properly" with the Tories' 1992 Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, insisting that "the balance of convenience" in the case was in favour of the employer.

Unite dockworkers' national secretary Brendan Gold retorted that the High Court was "intervening yet again to undermine our members' democratic decision to take industrial action."

"It is hugely frustrating going through the correct legal procedures to call this action, then to have the courts actively intervene in industrial disputes and block it," he declared.

The latest denial of workers' democratic rights came after judges banned walkouts by London busworkers in January and single-handedly overturned the overwhelming vote to strike by 40,000 BA workers just before Christmas.

University of Hertfordshire professor of industrial relations Gregor Gall explained that bosses had now won 13 court injunctions to stop workers striking over the last year.

He pointed out that there are many more "threats by employers to make applications for injunctions which can lead to unions standing down their actions."

Unite regional organiser Allan Card confirmed that the port workers had balloted "very strongly" in favour of taking industrial action, pointing out that the union had even offered to postpone the strike for 28 days to negotiate an end to the dispute.

"But that offer was turned down by the Port Authority," he said.

Mr Gold stressed that the pilots, who guide the massive oil and gas tankers that handle as much as 25 per cent of the country's petrol and gas supplies into one of Britain's largest ports for, would not be daunted by the court's intervention.

"Unite has now issued the employers with seven-days' notice that the pilots will stage a new 12-hour strike on February 23 and follow that with an overtime ban and a work to rule," he revealed.

Maritime workers RMT union leader Bob Crow added his condemnation of the judges "who are loading the anti-union laws even further in favour of the employers and throwing even more hurdles in front of union members seeking to take action to defend their working conditions.

"The arsenal of legal weapons ranged against workers by bosses seeking to wreck industrial action is growing by the day," he proclaimed.

by Paul Haste

(First published in the Morning Star 18.2.10)

Morning Star editorial

Once again, employers have used the courts against the Unite union to strangle legitimate industrial action at birth - to the great glee of the employers.

Last time it was the BA cabin crews who were kicked in the teeth by the courts. In December, British Airways was granted an interim injunction prohibiting Unite members from striking for 12 days over Christmas.

This time the employers were the Milford Haven Port Authority, which won a High Court bid to stop pilots and launch crew from walking out today. The victims were the pilots and crew members who are in dispute over drastic cuts to their pension scheme.

In both cases the union had conducted a ballot which resulted in a large majority for industrial action.

In both cases the union had done its level best to comply with the anti-union laws and follow the mandated procedures.

And in both cases the courts found technicalities to block industrial action - decisions which greatly favoured the employers.

In the Milford Haven case, Mr Justice Sweeney ruled that notices of industrial action issued by Unite for this week did not fully comply with the relevant legislation and issued a temporary injuction restraining the union from carrying out the strike threat.

This totally ignored the fact that a ballot had been fully and properly carried out and produced an overwhelming majority for action.

The right of workers to withdraw their labour had been totally over-ridden. And by what?

By a legal tactic which was not designed to be so used and is utterly inappropriate to an industrial dispute.

Temporary injunctions are designed to force companies and individuals to cease an activity which is due to come before the courts for determination so that further damage is not done prior to a full case hearing.

But industrial disputes matters are not a normal subject for the courts' consideration.

They are resolved by the normal process of industrial relations, which, the law recognises, may include action by workers to withdraw their labour.

Temporary injunctions have been used at least a dozen times over the last year to strikebreak and the matter rarely, if ever, became the subject of a full court hearing. Thus the use of a temporary injunction is, at the very least, an abuse of a law not originally intended to be used in that way.

The "balance of convenience" which Mr Justice Sweeney made such great play of yesterday is a term more readily applied to the loss suffered by firms which are contesting things such as patent infringements and could suffer damage to their trade if those infringements continued while awaiting a court hearing.

It is manifestly not appropriate to industrial action which is, by its very nature, designed to interfere with a firm's normal trading and force the company to the negotiating table.

Trade unions' liabilities for damages are limited in law expressly to protect their right to take action, although the anti-union laws, specifically the 1992 Trade Union and Labour Relations Consolidation Act, eroded those protections significantly. But these injunctions consider the effect of unions' actions without reference to any such protection. They are in direct conflict with the right of any person, unless they are a slave, to withdraw their labour when they see fit.

Such injunctions, while they do not form part of the Tory anti-union laws, are, when used in conjunction with them, a direct assault on the basic rights of working people everywhere.

They should be eliminated from any code of justice pretending to democratic antecedents.

The misuse of court injuctions is eroding rights that have been fought for over centuries and are workers' only protections. They, and the anti-union laws that are used in conjunction with them, must form a significant item on trade unions' agendas this year.