KANGAROO COURTS

Industrial justice at work

NORMAN FOWLER, MP

According to the unions who organised it the one-day strike on I March against the Industrial Relations Bill was an undoubted success. Some two and a half million union members responded to the strike call and factories, shipyards and car plants through- out Britain were brought to a standstill. But one group who ignored the strike that day were the men working in the fitting shop at the Rolls-Royce establishment at Hucknall.

The story really started in the week before 1 March. Most of the men in the fitting shop at Hucknall were members of the Amal- gamated Union of Engineering and Foundry Workers. Although they realised that the union was backing the one-day strike there was considerable feeling that the position of Rolls-Royce put members in a special position and that the last thing to do at such a stage was to come out on strike. Others did not agree with political strikes; and still others supported the Bill that the strike was all about. Attempts were therefore made to find out where they stood, but the only reply was to be shown an instruction from the Nottingham district committee of the union saying that there would be no exemptions.

Understandably this did not satisfy the men and on the Thursday they arranged a meeting of their own in the hangar where work is continuing on the aB211 engine. Virtually the only business at that meeting was to vote on whether the men wanted to strike or not. The result was an overwhelm- ing vote for working with no more than three or four voting to strike.

Needless to say this information soon got back to the union and the next day all members of the AUEFW at Hucknall (from the fitting shop and elsewhere) were called to a meeting on the sports ground. This was addressed by the Nottingham district sec- retary of the union who simply repeated that there would be no exemptions—`there is no room for manoeuvre'. In spite of loud and constant demands for a vote this was refused and the meeting ended with most of the members in the fitting shop no more satisfied than before.

Just how unsuccessful the persuasion had been was shown on the following Monday --the day of the strike. The fitting shop was almost fully manned and it is estiinated that only four out of the sixty union members obeyed the strike. The union's response was rather slow in coming. Although a list of the members who did not strike was drawn up it was not until 15 March that these men were sumMoned to a meeting at the union's head- quarters on the north side of Nottingham.

All told over fifty union members who had Worked on March 1 attended this meeting. They were drawn predominantly, but not exclusively, from Rolls-Royce. Most found chairs in the meeting room and facing them at the table in front sat the district chair- man of the union, the secretary and two Others. (These we might describe as 'the bench'.)- Just off sat about another dozen men who were presumably members of the district committee. The procedure adopted was that each man in turn was asked to stand up, give his name, branch and union number and then to state why he had worked on that day.

As luck would have it the first man to be called was in no way overawed by the occasion. With some force he said that he was in favour of the Industrial Relations Bill; that he would be very pleased to see it go through; and in any event he did not want to be involved in a political strike. He sat down to thunderous applause from the others waiting to state their case.

His speech set the trend and the two or three who followed also showed precious few signs of contrition. Their remarks also were greeted with applause and it was quite evident that this in particular was going down like a lead balloon with the bench. Doubt- less remembering all those television trials when the judge threatens to clear the public gallery unless there is silence, the chairman solemnly warned that he would have to adjourn if these unseemly demonstrations of enthusiasm continued. It also became evident that amongst the accused were not only political supporters of the Bill but some men who had probably never voted Con- servative in their life—including one local Labour councillor.

Quite evidently things had not altogether gone as planned for the union officials and even now their problems were not over. For after every trial there is usually a finding of guilt or innocence, not to mention a sen- tence. (This, after all, is the real crunch in every Perry Mason.) But in this case the bench ran a real risk. Up to that point the accused had shown a sturdy independence and the risk was that they might show even more if sentence was pronounced. The result was that the men were simply told that every one would be notified 'in due course' what was to happen.

No one then was more surprised than the men to read the next morning's Nottingham Guardian-Journal. This carried the news that sixty men had been fined up to /5 each and quoted the district secretary as saying: 'the instructions from the executive council left the district committee no discretion whatso- ever in granting exemptions from the one- day stoppage other than on grounds of safety and danger of breakdown to plant.' He add- ed that although many of those fined had claimed that there should have been a secret ballot there was no doubt that the union was allowed by its rules to call a strike without a ballot. Not only had the Guardian- Journal brought off a notable scoop, they were in the extraordinary position of bring-

mg the news to the men themselves. It is perhaps the most surprising fact about the case of fines for non-strikers that to this day the men have not been informed of their sentences or indeed the court's finding.

It is this fact that leads to one interpreta- tion of the case. This is that the local officials were above all trying to pressurise their members into not repeating the error of their ways at the second one-day strike on 18 March. To this extent they were partly suc- cessful. On 18 March the number who turned up for work in the fitting shop was consider- ably reduced—although even then some dozen union members stuck to their guns. But whatever temporary success the local officials achieved was bought at enormous cost.

Politically the affair could not have done more to throw doubt upon already dubious claims that the one-day strike was a spon- taneous demonstration against the Bill. Locally, and indeed nffltionally, the ham- fisted handling of the case has caused resentment and, more than this, it has finally made the union itself look ridiculous. For a fortnight ago in the High Court the union gave an undertaking in a case brought by five of its members at Harwell who had also been fined for not striking that it would not enforce the fines—and that undertak- ing must inevitably cover the Hucknall workers. (Whether the ridicule is the res- ponsibility of the national executive for issuing objectionable instructions or of local committees for their interpretation of these instructions is a matter that perhaps actually can be left to the union.) There can be no question then that the men who worked on 1 March won a notable victory.

Yet above all the case established the importance of the rule of law. A case which started with a one-day strike which denied the need for law in industrial rela- tions ended in supremely ironic fashion with the union giving an undertaking in a court. Doubtless the union will argue that its decision not to enforce the fines was taken before the start of last week's proceedings. Nevertheless it must have been mightily reassuring for the members affected (especially those who up to that stage had experienced only the strangest form of union justice) to read that the union had given an undertaking in open court that it would not enforce the fines or take any other action against them. They must have realised also that even if the union had not given its undertaking they themselves could have pursued their case with every chance of success. Some of the union leaders may not think much about the protection of the law but what about their members?