Inquiring into MP's allegations
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from our political correspondent • The Director of Public Prosecutions has now become involved in the case involving Mr. Alan Law, the Transport and General Workers' Union Official, Who has been accused in the Commons of "industrial sabotage and blackmail" in some of his dealings with Midlands road haulage firms.
Mr. Harold Gurden, the Conservative MP for Selly Oak, Birmingham, who raised the matter in the recent adjournment debate, said on Saturday that Mrs. Castle, Minister of Employment and Productivity, had told him that the DPP, Sir Norman Skelhorn QC, would make inquiries "into my allegations concerning Mr. Law's activities".
He added: "Scotland Yard have made contact with me. I have seen a police officer at the House. I think I will be able to help them with information." • The function of the DPP is to have inquiries made through Scotland Yard to ascertain whether there is sufficient evidence to warrant a prosecution.
Mr. Law commented: "I am not in the least concerned. The allegations are completely unfounded. Mr. Gurden has not got his facts right".
Mrs. Castle's decision to refer the case to Sir Norman appears to have been forced on her by an apparent conflict of view as to the precise ground to be covered by an inquiry which is being held by the TUC.
Mr. Harold Walker, a junior Minister at Employment and Productivity, told the Commons when replying to the adjourn
ment debate, that the TUC would be reporting on Mr. Law's activities.
But this brought an immediate denial from Mr. Victor Feather, acting general secretary of the TUC, and by. leaders of the TGWU.
Their version is that the investigation is concerned only with sorting out the spheres of influence in the dispute which is going on between the TGWU and its smaller rival, the United Road Transport Union, on the area from Cheshire to Luton for which Mr. Law is responsible.
The case which brought the "Law Affair" into the national headlines was the deal negotiated by Mr. Law with the transport firm of Stephenson Clarke Industrial Services, of Walsall, for the payment by the company of £5,000 to the union, which has been shared out between nine strikers at the end of a 2I-week stoppage.
In last week's Sunday Express which reported the bringing in of the DPP, there also appeared a long and frank interview with Mr. Law by Mr. Don Perry, the newspaper's industrial correspondent.
Mr. Law dismissed the suggestion that the TUC were investigating his activities. "They won't, you know," he told Mr. Perry. "The TUC have not been to see me. I don't expect they will. I get on with my job, they get on with theirs".
Mr. Perry reported that, far from being deterred by demands for an independent inquiry, "Alan Law, contemptuously unrepentent, is preparing to launch a series of wage claims for the lorry drivers".
The article goes on to quote Mr. Law as saying: "I know some firms will have to go out of business. There are too many firms. There are all these firms still with the horse and cart mentality. Real gipsies. I am happy to help the large efficient firms who can pay proper wages by shutting the door on inefficient firms run on a shoestring.
"Of course some employers fear me. They are the ones doing things that are wrong. Compelling my members to drive too long hours. Defying the safety laws. Many of them are not capable of carrying on an efficient business. The more they see of me the more they know they have to pay proper wages or get out."
He went on, in reply to further questions: "We do not start strikes. Disagreements are everywhere in life. They come up all the time. Most of our disagreements are settled before they even get to me.
"But take this new round of wage claims. After the years of wage freeze it is time my members got some good increases not for higher productivity, but because the costs of everything goes up and up.
"I have to negotiate with some very tough employers. Self-made millionaires. They could buy and sell you without getting up from the table.
"They only respect a man who can beat them at their own game. Beating the employers at their own game is what I am good at. I am the power up there."