Free Our Unions

Arguing for the right to strike

By Ali Crabtree, Prospect

June 3rd saw over six hundred members of the trade union Prospect descend upon the ICC in Birmingham for our biennial conference, as the elected representatives of 140k members.

Prospect advertises itself as a union for professionals, scientists, engineers and managers and represents workers predominantly across Energy, Research, Communications, Defence and Government sectors. Keen observers would know this is the first full conference since media union BECTU disaffiliated from the Labour Party to be merged with Prospect eighteen months ago,which surprisingly is less time than BECTU has been in full scale dispute with Picturehouse cinemas.

Trade union rights – back John McDonnell’s call

By Sam Greenwood, Wakefield Local Government UNISON activist

Speaking at a meeting on the first hundred days of a Labour government at Unison conference this week, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said that a Corbyn government will repeal all the Tories’ anti-union laws and enact positive legislation for workers’ rights. He also said Labour would back all strikes, in and out of office.

This is very positive. It’s the first time that a Labour leader has talked about repealing the anti-union laws – as opposed to just the the latest one, the 2016 Trade Union Act – since some comments by Corbyn in early 2016.

Would the miners’ strike have been illegal under Corbyn’s union laws?

Would the kind of action British miners took in their great strike in 1984-5 remain illegal under a Corbyn government?

What about the struggles of the Great Unrest just before World War One, the 1926 General Strike, the Ford Dagenham women’s strike in 1968, the strikes to free jailed dockers in 1972, the 1976-8 Grunwick strike and the 2005 Gate Gourmet dispute?

“A Corbyn government must free our unions” – motion to Unite policy conference

The following motion has been submitted to Unite the Union’s policy conference (2-6 July 2018, Brighton).

Matt Wrack and Shen Batmaz on why Labour must repeal all anti-union laws

Two leading labour movement activists, FBU General Secretary Matt Wrack and McStrike organiser Shen Batmaz, spoke to Free Our Unions about why the demand to repeal the anti-union laws is so important.

Young Labour national policy on repealing the anti-union laws/workers’ rights

The following two motions were passed at Young Labour policy conference in October 2017, building on the policy passed by Labour Party conference in September.

Six arguments against abolishing all the anti-union laws – Six replies

If we build a strong campaign to repeal the anti-trade union laws, in line with the policy passed unanimously at Labour Party conference last year (and policy passed in 2015 and 2005), we will face all kinds of objections from the press, the Tories, etc, backed up by outrage designed to intimidate people and prevent rational discussion. The danger is that a Corbyn leadership/government will retreat before such outrage – a danger signalled already by the fact the Labour Party is not campaigning for this demand now, despite the conference policy. Here we tackle some of the likely arguments we will face, from the right and indeed in the labour movement too.

The anti-union laws: acid test for a Corbyn government

“[Since 1980, trade unions have been] regulated, harried, battered, fined and sequestrated, step by step by step, in Act after Act in pursuit of aim of decollectivising the workplace.”
– Labour peer Bill Wedderburn on the last of nine Tory anti-union Acts, 1993

If Jeremy Corbyn wants a mass movement, he must radically revive the unions

By Michael Chessum, orginally published in The New Statesman, 5th January 2018

The world, especially the political world, is a volatile place these days, and one ought to be wary of omens. But when McDonalds announced this week that it would award its employees their biggest pay rise in a decade, you could be forgiven for having a superstitious moment about 2018. McDonalds, of course, won’t admit that the move was a concession to strike action by its workers, but the message could not be clearer. It is possible for even the most exploited workers to beat even the biggest of companies, so long as the action is high profile and militant enough.

Bob Crow and John Hendy on why we must repeal the anti-union laws

In 1998, in their pamphlet Reclaim Our Rights – Repeal the Anti-Union Laws published by the campaign of the same name, Bob Crow (then RMT assistant general secretary) and John Hendy QC wrote: