The Trade Union Benefit Bill
Mrs Barbara Castle has a talent for being %here the action is—rather as the peren- nially quotable Mr Crossman is always to be found where the words are. When 'he was Minister of Transport, she brought her rather dull department (which hither- to it had taken the public relations genius of an Ernest Marples to raise from its habitual obscurity) to the forefront of political debate by the simple expedient of producing the longest and most compli- cated Bill in parliamentary history. Although this achieved no discernible national objective, it succeeded in occupy- ing so many Member-hours that Parlia- ment itself virtually seized up and older Members' lives were materially shortened. Impressed, no doubt, by this demonstra- ion of productivity in action. Mr Wilson romoted her to the newly-named Depart- ent of Employment and Productivity; hereupon she promptly determined to roduce an even longer and still more omplicated Bill to deal with every con- eivable aspect of industrial relations. owever, while she was still pregnant with is great beast, public opinion and Tory voc,acy jointly convinced the Prime inister that the state of the nation was 00 grave to tolerate as prolonged a period if labour as Mrs Castle had envisaged. nd he in turn convinced her of the need o give premature birth instead to a mailer Bill confined to dealing with ildcat strikes and matters of similar rgency.
Such was the prelude to the greatest act abortion during the lifetime of the pre- nt parliament; when Mrs Castle's puta- ve Industrial •Relations Bill—on which, ccording to. Mr Wilson, not merely the noon's health but the Government's very tistence depended—was killed before tali by the determined opposition of the ade union bosses and their allies on the hour back benches. But for Mrs Castle setback on one front is an opportunity on other, Undaunted, she is now busy w- ring a massive White Paper on legisla- on to provide equal pay for women. And, eed, to judge from the past week's spaper accounts, she has not even yen up the struggle on the old trade ion Front.
For once again the cries of anger and guish are to be heard from the trade ion bosses and their parliamentary inions as Mrs Castle outlines her pro- IS for the future of the so-called in- Ines policy when the present legislation
expires at the end of the year. Mrs Castle's idea is that, henceforth, there should be a (purely voluntary) 'norm' for wage in- creases of up to 41 per cent a year. with greater increases officially approved pro- vided they satisfy one of a set of 'special circumstances' which together must apply to the bulk of the working population. Her only sanction would be the power to delay an increase for four months while the Prices and Incomes Board investigates it. And the Prime Minister has made it clear that the power of delay through the l'In is unlikely to survive that body's immin- ent merger with the Monopolies Com- mission.
All this adds up to an incomes policy with fewer teeth than the oldest Chelsea Pensioner. Why. then, so much huffing and puffing from the TUC? A matter of prin- ciple. it is claimed, is involved: the Trea- sury has ended dividend restraint, yet wage restraint is ostensibly to continue. In fact. since the statutory incomes policy ('stand- still', 'severe restraint' and all) began in July 1966 the average industrial pay packet has risen at the rate of 7 per cent a year. while the average ordinary dividend has risen at the rate of I per cent a year. Nor will the end of official dividend limitation do anything significant to close the gap. Indeed, there can be scarcely a board of directors in the land that would not settle like a shot for the financial ability to in- crease its dividends at the rate at which wages rise—incomes policy or no incomes policy.
The true principle involved has nothing to do with dividends whatever: it is the trade union bosses' refusal, on prin- ciple. to approve anything called an in- comes policy whatever. And the insistence on this principle is in turn dictated by something else: the decision of Mr Scanlon and Mr Jones, the two biggest trade union bosses, that it was not enough to achieve a famous victory over poor Mrs Castle's would-be Industrial Relations Bill. They must now rub the Government's noses in it to show, once and for all, who is master.
All this lack of brotherly love is, of course, highly embarrassing for the Government. But this is something the nation could suffer with equanimity were it not that the whole charade is distracting attention from yet another and far more important piece of legislation Mrs Castle is actively preparing for the new year. This is her Industrial Relations Bill Mark III— best described as the Trade Union Benefit
Bill. In it, all the concessions to the trade unions that were to have appeared in the
earlier Bill as the quid pro quo for the unions' accepting various restraints against precipitate and irresponsible strike action. will now be yielded in exchange for nothing.
Compulsory recognition of specific trade unions, increased payment of unemploy- ment benefit to those involved in strikes.
the compulsory provision of hitherto secret information to union leaders by employers —these and a whole range of further bene- fits are to be bestowed on the trade unions. The unions, which have enjoyed an anomalous and privileged position half within and half outside the law for more than sixty years. are to be given a still more privileged position while accepting no corresponding statutory obligations of any kind. Nor should it be thought that the ordinary trade unionist stands to be the principal beneficiary of all this. Existing legislation gives the ordinary member virtually no protection whatever against unfair treatment by his own union. Mrs Castle originally attempted to remedy this. But once again, the trade union bosses stepped in, and the Government has given way. There will now be nothing in the Bill providing either that union rules are fair and just or that members are protected against 'unfair or arbitrary action' by their union 'resulting in substantial injustice'.
It would be unfair to conclude from this that Mrs Castle is happy so long as she is legislating—whatever that legislation may provide. But she soon convinces herself that what she is doing is unequivocally right, however contradictory this may be to her original intention. There is. how- ever. no reason why she should convince anyone else. The number of strikes (out- side coalmining) so far this year is already 30 per cent up on the same time last year —and that in turn was a record. The Til- bury dock strike is simply the latest illus- tration of the damage to the nation that is being caused. Order has got to be restored to industrial relations in Britain. The Trade Union Benefit Bill. which represents a policy of total appeasement of the trade union bosses (who in turn have fast- diminishing control over their men). promises to be a major step in the wrong direction, and one that will make it materi- ally harder subsequently to move in the right direction. It must be made clear to the Government, now, that it will be fought every inch of the way.
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