Strikers and the Law
A public on which quite intolerable hardship has been, and in some cases is still being, inflicted by various unofficial strikes should have read with some satisfaction the admirable statements made by the Chief Magistrate, Sir Laurence Dunne, in passing sentence on ten gas-works employees at Bow Street, and by the Attorney-General in the address he gave on the following day to the Society of Labour Lawyers. The basic fact, emphasised most rightly in both cases, is that a law, not forbidding strikes but forbidding precipitate strikes in defiance of certain prescribed procedure, exists in the form of the Conditions of Employment and National Employment Order, 1940, and while a law exists it must be respected. No one can contend that the action taken against the gas strikers was premature, nor, in the circumstances, that the penalties imposed were excessive. Public utilities like gas, water and electricity are in a category by themselves. Interruption in those services causes immense domestic hardship as well as great industrial loss. All this the gas-strikers have inflicted at some financial loss, and no gain of any kind, to themselves. It is possible that in view of the frequency of unofficial strikes, fomented in some cases at any rate by suspect agents for non-industrial purposes, the law regarding such action may need strengthening. But before the decision to that effect is taken it is well that the existing law should be fully applied. Further application may be needed.
