Trade Union Bill & How to Kill it

Trade Union Bill & How to Kill it

A Communist Party Pamphlet by Laurence Platt Foreword by Kevin Halpin

Britain’s Road to Socialism The latest edition of the CP’s programme - presents and analyses capitalism and imperialism in its current form; answers the questions of how a revolutionary transformation might be brought about in 21st Century Britain; and what a socialist and communist society in Britain might look like.

The first edition was published in 1951 after nearly six years of discussion and debate across the CP, labour movement and working class. Over its 8 editions it has sold more than a million copies in Britain and helped to shape and develop the struggle of the working class for more than half a century.

Published by the Communist Party September 2015 Copyright © Communist Party 2015 Author: Laurence Platt Editor: Graham Stevenson ISBN 978-1-908315-35-9 RRP £2 A5/£3 A4 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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Tory Trade Union Bill and how to kill it

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The Tory Trade Union Bill & How to Kill It

by Laurence Platt

Foreword by Kevin Halpin Introduction Why unions still matter 2015 Bill: Sajid’s Blunderbuss Campaigning against the Tory assault Build our Union work by Graham Stevenson CP Solidarity Fund

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Foreword

by Kevin Halpin This pamphlet is a timely reminder of our belief and experience that action and solidarity do have the power to defeat anti-trade union legislation and defend our freedoms and democracy.

Of course it’s not going to be easy; it never was - but it’s a fight that must be waged and which we can win.

We may no longer have as many shop stewards committees because our industrial base has shrunk, but these types of collective bargaining organisation still play a key role in many workplaces, and today we have a new weapon social media - in our armoury; clearly recognised as such by the Tories who want to move from writing the questions on our industrial ballot papers to controlling when we can talk to our work mates and what we may say.

On the other hand, as is rightly pointed out in the pamphlet: ‘Unlike the early 1970s the leadership of the movement, including the TUC, has made clear its outright opposition to the Trade Union Bill and has called for the widest possible protest.’ So thankfully it’s not longer the case that Congress House will call on the local police to move trade union members lobbying outside for ‘disturbing the peace’, as happened to me on more than one occasion.

Over the past 35 years blood-chilling references to the 'bad old days' of the 1970s have been used by new Labour and old Tories to warn of the dangers of unions that are 'too strong'. But what was the reality? Certainly, unions were never strong enough (even if they had wanted to be) to sack a single employer, let alone thousands of people at once; or to sell off or shut down a company without warning; or to issue a death sentence to a whole local community.

The impression given of the ‘70s is that mass meetings were held every day, taking instant (‘wild cat’) action at the instigation of a small number of union agitators. As one who was there, and others will confirm this, I can tell you that this picture is nonsense. Just as frequently, mass meetings voted against action. When workers came out, it was usually because they were fed up with being treated like machines, to be speeded up and driven to the limit, or as casual labour to be picked up and discarded at will.

So by taking a stand for dignity and some control over the job, as well as for better wages and conditions, working people gained in confidence; confidence

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to defy and win.

KEVIN HALPIN was Industrial Organiser of the Communist Party from 1988 to 2010. As founding chairperson of the rank-and-file Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trades Unions (now merged into the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom) his role was pivotal in defending the rights of workers from both Labour and Conservative governments.

After his victimisation by Ford after 14 years as an AEU convenor, he was clearly on the engineering employers ‘blacklist’ being turned down for for work by 48 companies in three years, at which time the manager of the Dagenham Labour Exchange, convinceπd he’d never get back into engineering, suggested he retrain as a hairdresser. An offer he Flyer produced by the TUC in 1971 for the rally against the Industrial refused and finally, thanks to union Relations Bill . Courtesy of TUC Library Collections colleagues, found work in London’s ship-repair yards until (under Thatcher’s de-industrialisation) the docks closed when he went on to London Underground becoming chair and convenor of the joint trades unions committee.

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Introduction The 2015 Trade Union Bill marks a further attempt by a Tory government to make any trade union activity ineffective if not impossible. Throughout the twentieth century and now into the twenty first, Tory governments have tried over and over again to restrict Trade Unions’ ability to defend and advance the interests of their members because they recognise that workers organised in the workplace, independent of government and employer, are the single biggest stumbling block to the implementation of their reactionary policies.

Ever since people worked for an employer there have been attempts to regulate their employment. As far back as the fourteenth century feudal governments legislated to prevent land workers, artisans and craft workers demanding higher wages (The 1351 Statute of Labourers). Closer to our own times, the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800 made it a criminal offence for workers to join together for political purposes. The 1824 Combination of Workmen Act repealed the Acts of 1799 and 1800, but this led to a wave of strikes. Accordingly, the Combinations of Workmen Act 1825 was passed to re -impose criminal sanctions for picketing and other methods of persuading workers not to work. The 1834 case of the Tolpuddle Martyrs is now so wellknown as to need no further detail here.

In their modern form anti-union legislation has largely been a feature of the last three decades of the twentieth century and has been aimed at reducing the freedom of trade unions to act on behalf of their members. The first of these was a 1969 failed attempt initiated by Barbara Castle’s In Place of Strife.

But Ted Heath’s ill-fated attempt did make it to the statute books in the form of the 1971 Industrial Relations Act, steered through Parliament by Robert Carr as Secretary of State for Employment. Successive pieces of legislation from the Thatcher government in the 1980s have ensured that postal ballots have to be organised before industrial action takes place, that sympathetic (secondary) action in support of workers taking action was outlawed, union political funds have to be reaffirmed every decade by a ballot of the whole membership of the union and the ‘closed shop’ has been made illegal. The 1992 Trade Union and Labour Relations Act (Consolidated) placed further restriction on picketing, limiting a picket to six and confining them to being close to the workplace where the industrial action is taking place. Failure to

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abide by this legislation lays a union open to sequestration of its funds.

We may wish to note in passing that this battery of regulations has and continues to come from a Tory Party that in all other areas of the economy are the most steadfast opponents of regulation. A Party that lectures us from breakfast to dinner time on law and order, yet their anti-trade union legislation, which has been at the heart of much of their programme in government over past decades has consistently breached many of the international treaties that the UK is signed up. Most crucially the ILO conventions on workplace rights and the UN’s International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights! The ILO convention on Freedom of Association states clearly that: Article 2 Workers and employers, without distinction whatsoever, shall have the right to establish and, subject only to the rules of the organisation concerned, to join organisations of their own choosing without previous authorisation.

Article 3: 1.Workers' and employers' organisations shall have the right to draw up their constitutions and rules, to elect their representatives in full freedom, to organise their administration and activities and to formulate their programmes.

2.The public authorities shall refrain from any interference which would restrict this right or impede the lawful exercise thereof These articles were included in the ILO Charter in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War and were designed to ensure that workers organisations were free from government interference and an essential part of any democratic society. Since the early 1980’s successive British governments have arguably been in breach of Articles 2 and 3 and therefore in breach of their international obligations. The latest Tory assault on trade unions continues this trend in UK Labour legislation and indeed carries it further than ever before. If you ignore the law on picketing or any other aspect of the legislation you stand a good chance of being hit by a policemen and by a Judge

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whilst the Tories can blithely ignore their international obligations without let or hindrance. One law for you - another for them!

In 2015 we face the next round of antiunion legislation from what history will undoubtedly regard as one of the most reactionary governments that Britain has had in over a hundred years. The purpose of the Bill is to demolish, they hope once and for all, any meaningful trade unionism in this country. This represents the latest in a long line of attempts by the representatives of the Capitalist Class to prevent workers from effectively advancing their terms and conditions at work and having a real say in the society within which their work creates much of the wealth. A poster at the time of the imposition of Heath’s Industrial Relations Act said ‘SHUT UP AND KEEP WORKING (by order)’ and this sums up the thrust of all the anti-working class legislation that successive governments Pamphlet produced by the TUC in 1971 have passed down the centuries,through the Feudal Court or the Bourgeois Parliaments. The Trade Union legislation envisaged by the Tory government is no different in its intent and must be stopped in its tracks!

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Why unions still matter Trade unions give workers a voice in the workplace that would otherwise be denied them. Unions also go some way to redressing the imbalance of power between bosses and workers. At its most basic people at work need someone to speak up for them. That is as true today as it has been throughout the history of the trade union movement.

But trade unions do much more than that. Over the last fifty years our unions have been at the forefront in ensuring that the workplace is safe for workers to be in. The trade unions were the main force in society that ensured that the Health and Safety at Work Act got onto the statute book.

Unions have led the fight for compensation for workers exposed to asbestos and now suffering from Mesothelioma, as well as a whole range of other industrial illnesses. Before the destruction of the mining industry by an equally right wing government, the National Union of Mineworkers had played a central role in making British deep mined coal the safest in the world.

Our unions were, and continue to be, a central part of the forces in society that saw the passage of the legal framework to ensure equal pay and equality of opportunity for women and black workers and more recently for disabled workers and Gay, Lesbian and Transgender members.

Without our unions we would not have seen the better pay, better working conditions and better pensions that have been an important feature of a working life over the past half century. All of these things did not just happen, neither were they ‘gifts’ from a benevolent employer or government. They were negotiated and, when necessary, fought for by workers and their unions, often in the face of ferocious opposition from employers and the State throughout the post-war period.

The trade unions have also been able to use the money contributed by members to their political funds, not only to support the Labour Party which has given working people a political voice, but also to be able to run campaigns on many issues that affect the day to day lives of the community as a whole.

It would be wrong to say that the advances to which the trade unions have so centrally contributed are now complete - there is much that still needs to be done. . The battle against capitalism and the capitalist class will continue as long as capitalism survives.

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The ability of the trade union movement to continue to fight for is now under the most direct threat that has been seen for at least a generation. The proposals contained in the Trade Union Bill will prevent any effective defence of gains that have been made in the post-war period (much of which has already been eroded) but will make virtually impossible the fight for any further advance for working people.

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The 2015 Bill: Sajid’s Blunderbuss Although there are differences of detail, the overall thrust of Sajid Javid’s Bill has some remarkable similarities with the 1970 Industrial Relations Bill.

Writing at that time, Communist National Industrial Organiser, Bert Ramelson, pointed out that: “The Industrial Relations Bill 1970 is the most vicious piece of politically motivated class legislation since the Combination Acts of the early 1800s. It has been framed by big business for big business. The Bill is not only an attack on the trade unions …

It is aimed equally to deprive the British people of some of their basic inalienable democratic rights such as freedom of speech and expression, and the right to demonstrate and organise in support of their views and opinions. The threat to trade unionists and their rights is also an attack on other human rights….. the Tories henchmen of the boss class - have thought of most of the circumstances when trade unions are likely to have to take industrial action, declared them ‘unfair industrial practices’ and therefore illegal … the Bill even deprives the trade unions of the right to remain voluntary organisations framing their own rules….’

(Ramelson, Carr’s Bill and How to Kill it: A Class Analysis, C.P. 1970.)

We are now faced with a Trade Union Bill just as extensive in scope as the 1971 Act and just as likely to provoke a similar mass opposition. This blunderbuss approach may be the biggest weakness in the Tory strategy to remove the trade unions form the industrial and political scene in the UK. Once they become law the provisions contained in the Trade Union Bill will make industrial action almost impossible. They will:

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Impose virtually unachievable targets on Industrial Action Ballots before a strike can be legally called.

Try and break the financial link between the unions and the Labour Party, thereby ending our political voice.

Prevent unions and management bodies agreeing to facility time for trade union reps.

Criminalise picketing during strike action.

Will legalise the ‘right’ of the employer to bring in scab labour to replace those who are on strike.

Abolish check-off in the public sector.

And finally, in a sinister twist since it impinges on the freedom of the press, they will insist on the government being notified in advance of anything a union puts on social media relating to support for members in dispute with their employer.

Ballots The regulations covering balloting for industrial action demand that at least 50% of those eligible to vote do so and that in essential services there must be a 40% vote in favour of all those entitled to vote before that action is deemed lawful. In other words a no vote is taken as a vote against action As has already been pointed out by many in the movement if this same rule was applied to elections to Parliament or to local councils there would hardly be an MP or councillor in the land but it seems that it is one law for them but another for us!

At the same time the government has rejected any suggestions from the TUC to modernise the way in which voting takes place, for example by voting online through secure websites or properly monitored workplace ballots.

What is also worth pointing out is that once a strike is called the real ballot is the number of members that actually come out. It is faintly ridiculous to argue, as the government and sections of the press have, that the turnout is the result of intimidation of a ‘majority’ by a militant minority! Workers take part in strike action because of the strength of feeling over the matter at issue plain and simple! There are no similar restrictions placed on the ’rights’ of management to close down whole workplaces and throw hundreds and sometimes thousands of workers on the scrap heap - as can be seen by the recent announcement by Tata Steel in Rotherham and the decision to close

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the Goodyear factory in Wolverhampton and move production elsewhere in the EU. Political funds The attack on the political funds of the trade unions takes us back to the 1920s when, in the aftermath of the General Strike, similar legislation was enacted which required union members to ‘opt in’ to the political fund rather than opt out as is currently the case. The government knows that this will dramatically undermine the efforts of the movement to campaign on issues that have an effect on their members. It is well known that some of the funds go to support Labour candidates at general and local elections. What is less generally understood is that the political funds also enable the unions to campaign on issues that have an impact on people’s lives. Recent examples of this are the unions’ input into campaigns against TTIP and the ‘Bedroom Tax’. It goes without saying that there are no similar proposals to restrict the ‘rights’ of the bosses to ladle cash into the coffers of the Tory Party or indeed to prevent employers and their representatives campaigning on whatever issues they like!

Facility time Facility time for trade union representatives has, and continues to be, a positive influence on the workplace. It represents the ability of shop stewards and safety reps to raise issues with management and resolve them before matters reach a crisis point. The attempts by the government to abolish this would make you think that they actually want to provoke industrial action by workers!

Agency workers The intention to allow employers to bring in scab labour to break a strike is a recipe for disorder if ever there was one. The government seem quite ready to contemplate this in their headlong dash to eliminate effective trade union action in the UK. Check-Off The addition of an attack on check-off was added out of the blue some three weeks after the original publication of the Bill itself. It is nothing other than an

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attempt to weaken any trade union organisation in the public sector. Check-off arrangements have been freely negotiated between unions and the employer and have served both well over a number of years and more importantly have not been the subject of any complaints by employers themselves. If the Tories get away with this one then it won’t be long before it seeps into the private sector. Above all the way in which the announcement was made, outside of any of the Parliamentary processes that are supposed to be followed once a Bill is published and that the consultation launched by Sajid Javid is a sham.

Picketing, social media and leverage campaign Amongst the most sinister provisions of the Bill are those that deal with the conduct of an industrial dispute. Even where it is possible to win a ballot, further hurdles are thrown in the way of workers acting effectively to win the dispute. Unions will be expected to provide the police with information about the numbers attending a picket or associated protest, whether or not banners or placards will be used.

The Police must be notified in advance of a nominated person who is in charge of the picket or protest and this person must wear an armband and carry a letter of appointment from their union, which they must produce for inspection by any copper who asks for it! A complete plan of how the industrial action will run has to be provided to the police in advance of the action taking place. The use of social media is to be controlled, with the union expected to inform the police in advance of which media is to be used and what is to be said, when and by

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whom; again, a breach of civil liberties.

Needless to say there are no provisions in the Bill which insist that employers should inform the union of what measures they intend to take to defeat a strike; much less is there any suggestion that the police inform the union of the measures that they intend to take to police industrial action.

As with any proposed legislation there is a consultation period and the published documents associated with this are illuminating.

In 2014 the then Coalition Government commissioned Bruce Carr Q.C. to conduct a review of trade union action in the conduct of strikes. He abandoned this, giving his reasons as: 1. Being increasingly concerned about his ability to gather meaningful evidence from either employers or unions.

2. Suggesting the political environment in the run up to the General Election made an objective review difficult.

3. And that he had reached the conclusion that it simply will not be possible for the review to put together a substantial enough body of evidence from which to provide a sound basis for making recommendations for change.

At the time, this was a considerable embarrassment to the government but, being driven by their own class instincts, this has not been allowed to stand in their way!

And so it is that in the Impact Assessment it is acknowledged that there ‘is no definitive evidence of the scale of any problem relating to picketing and intimidation. Evidence from the Carr review indicated that though breaches of the code (Code of practice on picketing - 1992) do happen this evidence could not be substantiated.’ It goes on then to state ‘We aim through consultation to seek further views on the proposed measures and how they relate to the potential problems’.

This is a bit like saying ‘We’ve decided that you are guilty and the sentence has been agreed - we’re just waiting for someone to provide us with the evidence’!

One of the specific forms of effective industrial action that is singled out in the Tory attack is the leverage tactic that some unions have employed.

Leverage works by putting pressure on the supply chain of an employer with

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whom the union is in dispute in order to bring about a speedy and successful outcome to any industrial action. This is completely within the law and has proved very effective. This is now characterised as ‘causing fear and intimidation’ and in a desperate attempt to get over the fact that Carr could find no evidence to support this ‘fear and intimidation’, Javid is now seeking the ‘evidence’ through the consultation process that the Trade Union Bill has to go through before it can become an act. It will cause no surprise if this process comes up with the ‘evidence’ that so far does not exist!

What all this amounts to is a wholesale assault on the freedom of the working class and its industrial and political organisations, as well as the wider civil liberties of the population as a whole. It will remove any realistic chance of people improving their working lives and of having any real say in the society in which we live. It gives the green light for the bosses to behave in any high handed way that they feel fit and for us, as the poster from the campaign against (only politically related) Robert Carr’s Industrial Relations Act put it, to ‘Shut Up and Keep Working’.

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Campaigning against the Tory assault The blunderbuss approach that the Tories have taken in the Trade Union Bill is probably its greatest potential weakness. Its wide-ranging provisions are likely to have an impact on not only the trade union movement but on wider sections of society as a whole. This is particularly so with regard to the parts of the Bill which relate to use of social media. It can be nothing other than an attack on freedom of opinion and expression to demand that trade unions involved in industrial action have to submit for police approval the details and content of anything that they intend to put on Facebook or Twitter in support of striking members. What is not clear is what happens to someone, trade unionist or not, who puts things on social media in support of striking workers and is not directly involved in the dispute. It probably won’t be long before the courts come up with a solution to that! What is being proposed is nothing other than the silencing of freedom of speech and the expression of opinion by working people and those that support them. There appears to be no such restrictions envisaged for the bosses and their supporters in the right wing press and it unlikely that their political representatives, the Tories, will accept any legislative attempt to do so.

The last time such an all-encompassing attempt to silence the trade union movement was attempted, in the 1971 Industrial Relations Act, a combination of protest and industrial action utterly defeated it. It was precisely its catch all nature that gave rise to the groundswell of opposition, led by the LCDTU, which defeated the Act. A very important lesson for us today and the key to understanding why the 1971 campaign was so effective was the campaign to take industrial action. Mainly Communist trade union leaders – both rank and file and full-time officers - arranged prior activity to brief and alert masses of trade union members in workplace meetings that primed important sections of the working class to agree to be ready to act. Thus, the surge of walk-outs against the legislation did not happen spontaneously. Mass one-day stoppages in 1968 and 1970 laid the basis for this. It would be wrong to imagine that we have exactly the same circumstances as we had when large numbers of wellorganised workers were in key industrial sectors in both the private and public sectors and there had been a rise in working class militancy over wages from the mid-1960s.

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However, even in a time where people are far more scattered and isolated than ever before, there continues to be a willingness amongst workers to take action to defend themselves against the high-handed actions of management. In the recent period there has been widespread action in local government and the civil service, on the railways and in other areas of transport. Such action has also been occurring in some of the most unlikely of places - at the National Gallery over the outsourcing of the jobs of some 400 staff and at Sotheby’s Auction House, where cleaners have been sacked for joining a union.

Perhaps the most instructive has been the recent industrial action in the construction industry where a sacked shop steward has been reinstated after a picket was put on at the place where he worked. This picket was supported by construction workers from all over the country and no doubt social media played a part in the mobilisation for this - precisely the sort of communication and rapid response that the Tories will attempt to silence.

Unlike the early 1970s the leadership of the movement, including the TUC, has made clear its outright opposition to the Trade Union Bill and has called for the widest possible protest. The task that faces us is to build on this in order to create a mighty campaign that will stop this vicious anti-working class legislation in its tracks.

It is probable that the Tories will get the Bill on to the statute book but the campaign that we build now will be the essential bedrock on which action can be developed which can make the new law inoperative.

In the immediate future we must work for the maximum support for the action that has been called for by the TUC and ensure that there is no backsliding by the leadership. There will be calls for a general strike against the Bill and when it comes to the Act. Such calls should not be dismissed out of hand but all must realise that the conditions in which such action could have any possibility of success must be built. A general strike cannot be pulled like a rabbit from a magician’s hat.

Full support should be given to the lobby of the Tory Party Conference and the lobby of Parliament as called for by the TUC. These can be seen as the building blocks for further action.

At a local level there is every reason why MPs, both Labour and Tory, and others should be lobbied in their own constituencies. Leave them in no doubt that the anti-union legislation is unacceptable. Press Labour MPs to actively work to frustrate and delay the passage of the Bill through Parliament. Make it

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clear that it is not acceptable to give vague promises that they will repeal the Act if they get back into government in 2020. They must be encouraged to work alongside us from the outset in moves to derail the Bill and, if it gets onto the statute book, the Act itself.

At a time when more and more workers are taking action to defend their jobs and their terms and conditions, there is an increasing likelihood that they will become enmeshed in the provisions of the Act. This is what happened in 1971 when dockers pursuing an industrial dispute aimed at extending the Dock Labour Scheme to container terminals found themselves on the receiving end of court action under the Industrial Relations Act and were thrown in to Pentonville Prison for contempt of court. Mass action and the threat of a general strike by the TUC general council secured their release after five days. 1971. We need once again to ensure that if any workers in the course of taking industrial action are threatened with legal action under the Act that we are in a position to deliver the same response as was delivered in support of the Pentonville Five.

Labour unrest in the period 1970-74 was far more massive and incomparably more successful than its predecessor of 1910-1914. Millions of workers were involved in campaigns of civil disobedience. Over 200 occupations of factories, offices, workshops and shipyards occurred in two years alone and many of them attained all or some of their objectives. And the coal miners’ victories in the two Februaries of 1972 and 1974 gave a finality to a temporary defeat for capitalism.

As then, mass defiance by workers and their unions must be at the centre of our response but we must also reach out to the widest sections of our society and bring them into action, particularly around the threat to the freedom of expression and opinion. Our ability to do this is the best guarantee of being able to create the circumstances in which the anti-working class laws can be defeated.

Our future is at stake! Either we build the movement to defeat this legislation or we pass under the shadow of the most reactionary laws this country has seen in many, many decades. At the centre of this will be our unions but we must also build on the work already done by the Institute of Employment Rights and the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom alongside the widest possible mobilisation of public opinion. There is no room for compromise here; there is nothing in this act that can be seen as providing any

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kind of basis for creating a fair and equitable society. It promises nothing but legal sanctions, fines for both our unions and individual members and the probability of imprisonment for any attempt to advance our terms and conditions at the workplace and any moves to have a real say in the affairs of our country. Full support must be given to all those who find themselves in conflict with this rotten law.

The power of mass protest.

Just a day after the TUC mass lobby of Parliament on the 2nd of November the government announced it was withdrawing some of the provisions of the Trade Union Bill. The proposal to force unions to publish a protest and picketing plan 14 days in advance of action being taken which included what unions intended to post on Facebook and Twitter. The Tories have also decided that they will not pursue with proposals to create a whole new raft of criminal offences around picketing and make every picket wear an armband or give their name to the police. Perhaps most importantly the proposal that the picket organiser must carry a letter of authorisation from his or her union to show the police or any member of the ‘public’ who requests to see it has been removed.

These changes to the provisions of the Trade Union Bill have undoubtedly come about as a result of the growing pressure from trade unions, the wider community and the fact that at least five Tory MPs have indicated that they may well rebel over the Bill.

But no one should be fooled - the bulk of the Bill remains intact and indeed the withdrawal of the provision to make unions publish protest and picketing plans including their intended use of social media will be more than compensated for by Theresa May’s ‘Snoopers Charter’ which is also on its way through Parliament and will give the ‘security’ services virtual carte blanche to spy on all our internet use including emails and social media!

Still at the centre of this odious piece of class legislation are the new rules on balloting for industrial action and the scrapping of the laws to outlaw the use of scab labour in an industrial dispute.

The mass opposition outside parliament has created the circumstances where the government has withdrawn some of the proposals in the Bill but most of its most dangerous provisions remain intact and continue to pose a grave threat to the ability of unions to effectively represent the interests of

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their members. The TUC and its affiliates must keep up the pressure, along with civil liberties campaigners and we must be prepared to take all the measures necessary to utterly defeat this vicious attempt to silence the voice of the working class.

This is a fight for freedom and democracy. This legislation must be defeated:

Kill the Bill, Demolish the Act!

The momentum which gathered behind Jeremy Corbyn’s labour leadership campaign shows what can be achieved when a voice is given to those who have been abandoned by the neoliberalism of the Tories and New Labour. The campaign is shifting the terms of the debate and breathing new life into the case for a genuine socialist alternative to endless austerity. At the heart of this has been the Morning Star, which as the voice of the resistance and the only daily paper supporting struggle is now more critical than ever. The Morning Star is at the centre of the Kill the Bill campaign. It will report and support the many meetings, marches, rallies and groups that will undoubtedly be established in the fight to defeat it.

It does not have the same resources that the capitalist press can rely on.

There are no billionaire oligarchs or non-doms backing the Morning Star. It is wholly owned and supported by its shareholders from individuals to trade unions, including Community, CWU, FBU, GMB, NUM, POA, RMT, Ucatt and Unite. Read it! Donate to it! Get your shareholding now! Better still, get your trade union branch or other progressive organisation to do the same. This is a critical time for the movement and your voice and your paper are a vital tool in the fight in the class war. Don’t be without it.

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Build our Trade Union work

by Graham Stevenson, CP Trade Union Organiser One of the bugbears of British capitalism, its state, its security services, and its propaganda machine has been how Communist have for so long been at heart of our unified trade union movement. This was especially with the Party’s leading role in the trade union struggles of the late 1960s and early 1970s. A prime minister once had a vision – fed to him by MI5 – of a "tightly knit group of politically motivated men" behind disputes like the seamen's strike of the 1966. Of course, it’s not like that now – we have women, too!

From the National Minority Movement of the 1920s, to the 1926 general strike, Britain’s Communists have never been found lacking. As the task of leading the great unemployed struggles of 1929-39 faded, the National Unemployed Workers Movement leader, Wal Hannington, became national organiser of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. The Party’s legendary general secretary, Harry Pollitt, called for a `Turn to Industry’ and a new wave of union organisation began, with Communists at the forefront and regularly awarded the TUC Tolpuddle medal for astounding number of workers recruited. Tom Mann, a heroic leader of an older generation was a Communist, as were up and coming miners’ leaders, Arthur Horner and Abe Moffatt.

During the Second World War, and for a generation after it, Communist shop stewards became almost the norm. The reason so many known Communists were elected by their workmates was because of their integrity and incorruptibility.

As the cold war faded, Bert Ramelson, the Party’s infamous national industrial organiser from the mid-1960s, stood at the heart of the modern idea of a broad left. The alliance between Communists and other lefts was so strong that Ramelson was able to once comment that he had only to "float an idea early in the year and it will be official Labour Party policy by the autumn."

A full quarter of the delegates to the 1973 TUC congress were reputed to be Party members.

The sharp decline in union membership during the 1980s was initially mainly due to the high levels of unemployment. A highpoint of 12% of the working population was hit in 1983. Sectors like coal, steel, and manufacturing were hit particularly hard. Until recently, a big exception was the public sector, which

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saw an expansion and strengthening of trade union organisation. But the working class also suffered a series of major defeats. Proceeding cautiously at first, Thatcher aimed at a strategy of isolating and then defeating key groups of workers and slowly introducing anti trade union legislation.

Join the Communist Party or Young Communists The Communist Party’s Aims and Constitution make clear that we are mainly focused on achieving a socialist Britain: “in which the means of production, distribution and exchange will be socially owned and utilised in a planned way for the benefit of all.This necessitates a revolutionary transformation of society, ending the existing capitalist system of exploitation and replacing it with a socialist society in which each will contribute according to ability and receive according to work done.

Socialist society creates the conditions for advance to a fully communist form of society in which each will receive according to need.”

The Communist Party punches well above its weight but, with more members, we could achieve more. Having read this pamphlet, will you consider joining our Party? Since our last Congress, the Communist Party has been working hard to take its work amongst trades unionists to the level of activity the present Tory offensive calls for. The development of more and better advisory groups to the executive in specific industries has been steady in building our Trade Union Advisory Network. Especially in promoting our bulletin Unity!, with Anita Halpin as editor-in-chief, at union conferences and events.

We plan a special Solidarity Fund to help young Party and YCL activists become better involved. A more organic involvement of Young Communist League members in our work is increasingly evident and there are exciting new possibilities for unionisation in the fast food sector. We have even held a weekend school for Young Workers in our trade union cadre development programme. We hope to developing educational resources, such as podcasts, even short films, tutors’ notes, all of which could be used to reach out to a new generation of potential activists.

Retired Members The Party is looking to see how our members can be better co-ordinated in their activity in the many Retired Members Associations and other pension’s campaigns groups.Volunteers with a particular knowledge of pensions’ matters,

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Tory Trade Union Bill and how to kill it

especially workplace pensions, are already forthcoming but more would be welcome to be involved in this and suggestions of names would be appreciated to.

The nature of work today is fragmented and sections of the movement aren’t really interested in organising out of the way and difficult to service individuals or groups. Let’s get all who can join into a union! And, while we are at it, let’s recruit, organise, and train a whole new generation of activists who we can be proud of in building a new and more vigorous profile for Communist trade union work.

Needs of the Hour New international briefings in the Communist Party series, Needs of the Hour, are now available to view and download online.

For TTIP, see: http://issuu.com/communist_party/docs/international_bulletin_ttip_may_201 For Ukraine, see: http://issuu.com/communist_party/docs/international_bulletin_ukraine_may_ We are now developing others for domestic policy and would positively welcome suggestions and drafts for trade union briefings on:  The economy and the way forward  Pay, prices, and profits  The fight back in the workplace and community  Co-ordinating industrial action, including solidarity acts  Building national and international conglomerate co-ordination in all industries  Linking each strand of the economy into a new alternative economic and political strategy To offer help or if you have any queries about the Communist Party’s trade union policy and work, please email: tradeunion@communist-party.org.uk

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Younger Member Development Solidarity Fund Whether you are a member of ours or not, you can help the Communist Party in its campaign to renovate involvement and activity of younger people in the trade union movement. Young Worker Students do not have to be members of the Party or YCL to be eligible for CP Trade Union Training.

We have just held our first ever successful Young Workers' Residential Weekend School. Most of those attending were in low wage and unstable jobs.

The event focused on training to become involved in union branch activity, or how to organise a workplace, to get involved in committee and conference work. We aim to hold more of these events. Can you help fund our next school?

We have set up a special Solidarity Fund to help younger trades unionist get better involved, for example by funding their attendance as part of our Unity! bulletin distribution team at union conferences. That way, militant younger trades unionists can get to go to the many fringe meetings, mix with veterans, and even sit in as visitors at their union conference and learn the ropes.

Give what you can to our Solidarity Fund on a regular basis by completing the form overleaf. It doesn't matter how little or how much - everything given this way by you will be ear-marked purely for the foregoing use.

Make a few quid a week contribution to help train young comrades by signing up to our Solidarity Fund.

Or make a one off donation - ÂŁ100 will get a young activist to their union conference and put them up whilst they give out copies of our trade union bulletin, Unity!

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Tory Trade Union Bill and how to kill it

Bankers Order Form Name Address

Postcode

Please pay: Unity Trust Bank plc, Nine Brindleyplace, 4 Oozells Sq, Birmingham B1 2HB. Sort code 086001 Account Number 20092959 ÂŁ

each week/month until further notice

and debit my account number

Bank sort code

Starting on (date) Signature To: The Manager (Your bank name and address) Postcode Please fill in and return to CP, Ruskin House, 23 Coombe Rd, Croydon CR0 1BD

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daily paper of the left

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