Who owns the unions?
Page 39
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THE GOVERNMENT, to no one's surprise, is going ahead with the plans announced before the General Election to alter the law governing trade unions. The Queen's speech at the opening of Parliament described the legislative intentions as "giving trade union members greater control over their unions."
Road transport operators are as varied a bunch as the industry they work in, and their reactions to most things cannot easily be predicted. But it seems unlikely that there will be any opposition in principle from that quarter to the changes in the law that the Government plans to introduce during this session of Parliament.
Whether an individual official, once elected, should have to be re-elected periodically is perhaps a more open question. As we have seen recently in the run-up to the General Election (and are seeing again in the preparations for the election of a new Labour Party leader) candidates approaching elections do not necessarily apply the same standards which they would otherwise use in normal times.
A union leader approaching re-election might be tempted to be more militant than normal in order to show his members that he was made of stern stuff. But that is a practical consideration, rather than one of principle.
All employers must be keenly interested in trade union legislation. Wherever the blame may lie, there can surely be no dispute that poor industrial relations have contributed significantly to the post-war decline of British industry.
But road transport employers, especially on the freight side of the industry, have a special interest in any legislation on industrial relations.
For they are affected in two ways. Not only are their dealings with their own employees directly regulated. They also suffer indirectly from disputes in the industries which they serve. And in practice the second category causes hauliers more problems than the former.
So far as their own employees are concerned, road hauliers do not have too many problems. There is a lot of sound and fury from time to time — today over wage rates for driving 38tonners, a few years ago over the use of tachographs. But serious disputes are comparatively rare.
The enthusiastic reception Mr Tebbitt received at the Road Haulage Association dinner (apart from his extraordinary gaffe over taxation) makes it clear that the industry strongly supports his proposals.
Nevertheless, it is perhaps opportune to suggest that they should not be swallowed whole. Instead, each component should be examined critically and comprehensively. Hauliers should not only ask what effect each proposed change will have on their own internal industrial relations, but at the effect on industry generally.
One element has particular dangers for hauliers. This is the proposal that strikes which have not been preceded by ballots should no longer be protected from actions for damages under civil law.
Major employers, in all industries, will proceed very cautiously in the use of their new power. They will be very conscious that they have to live with the unions long after the dispute has been settled. And, no matter what the law may say, more damage can be done by surly, non-co-operative bloodymindedness over a long period than by a relatively short strike.
The same attitude may not be taken by the plethora of small operators who form such a large (and not always very stable) part of the industry. Disputes in that sector often take on a personal element simply because both parties are accustomed to dealing with each other face to face, not through relatively remote negotiators.
The popular Press, capitalising on the unpopularity of the trade unions, would be likely to cover such a story from the point of view of the small haulier, confronted by the "giant" union. As was seen in the Grunwick dispute in the mid-1970s, this can cause a surge of sympathetic action spreading far beyond the original dispute.
So a small haulier, perhaps disenchanted with the business, and enjoying the chance of being built up into an anti-union hero by the tabloids, might provoke sympathetic action over a very wide area of the industry. Even more serious is the danger that action by irresponsible employers in other sectors will cause widepread sympathetic action. This can be just as disastrous to hauliers, since they lose their traffic during the dispute.
The major danger of the impending clash over Mr Tebbit's proposals is more general. Some on the union side are already breathing fire and
ranting about fighting the legislation outside Parliament. That is inevitable. But the fact that these people make a lot of noise should not be allowed to drown the sane voices of peop like Len Murray and Terry Duff Courageously and sensibly, th point to the need for dialogue with the Government, as well E to the absurdity of expecting a electorate which had just refused to support the Labour Party at the ballot box to turn c on to the streets for the same cause.
As the Bill progresses throuc Parliament, attitudes on both sides will harden. If employers and the MPs who speak for the adopt a triumphalist attitude — "We are the masters now" — t unions are bound to react, to t benefit of Mr Scargill and his like, and the corresponding detriment of Messrs Murray ar Duffy.
The Government will certair get its legislation on to the Statute Book. But the more acrimonious the atmosphere c the debates — in and out of Parliament — the greater the danger of industrial disruptior following it.
Employers can surely afford take a positive attitude, and to stretch out a hand to those in t unions who want a dialogue. Such a dialogue will not guarantee that the outcome w give Britain the improved industrial relations framework so desperately needs. But a or sided approach will certainly guarantee that the strife will continue. Indeed, it will probal get worse.