WHY MPS SHOULD SUPPORT THE TRADE UNION FREEDOM BILL

Not everyone can access the Morning Star print version, or subscribe as I do to the on-line version. Here's the case for the Trade Union Rights and Freedom Bill , to hopefully be debated tomorrow in the House of Commons.
It's by Keith Ewing and John Hendy QC from the Institute of Employment Rights

THE injunction granted last week in the High Court against the CWU strike graphically illustrates why hundreds of trade unionists will be gathering at Westminster today to support the Trade Union Rights and Freedoms Bill, scheduled for its second reading in the House of Commons on Friday.
Tabled by Labour backbencher John McDonnell and supported by the TUC and most of Britain's major unions, the Bill does not have the support of the government, which recently affirmed its contempt for trade union rights with its opt-out from the EU charter of fundamental rights, following the path cut by John Major at Maastricht 15 years ago.
The injunction that was obtained by Royal Mail was brought before the court on less than three hours notice. The CWU was unable to put in evidence or even get a representative to court to give its lawyers a full briefing. There was no time to prepare any documents for the court or a written legal argument.
CWU counsel had 30 minutes to read a substantial file of evidence prepared by Royal Mail and its written argument and to get some information over the phone from the CWU.
The injunction was granted on the grounds that the notice was defective. The union had given details of every workplace where the 80,000 CWU members intended to strike, the number in each grade at each workplace, the total number in each workplace and the total overall.
However, the union did not provide the totals in each grade overall, though they were easily calculable by Royal Mail from the figures given. Nevertheless, the legislation requires the union to do the arithmetic - hence, principally, the injunction.
No doubt many people welcomed the strike's consequential calling off. But the law is brought into disrepute when the judge has no option but to deny a fundamental freedom to tens of thousands of people because of an inconsequential technicality in a hearing at which one party is at a serious disadvantage.
As with the prison officers, it remains to be seen just how far unfair laws will lead to wildcat action, provoking an even bigger crisis of respect for the law.
It is not only strike notices and their disproportionate obligations and consequences that cause acute concern. Like Labour's inheritance tax policy, the current trade union restraints are a bequest from the Tories - on this occasion, the Thatcher and Major governments.
Some of these restraints were described at the time of their introduction as having an "Orwellian flavour" and to be "unreasonable" and "unjustified" by John Hutton, then a dispassionate academic, and Tony Blair, then opposition employment spokesman, respectively.
These epithets do not cease to be true simply because their authors moved from the groves of academe or the trenches of opposition to government.
Nor should we be alarmed by the ease with which our political leaders swallow their own words. A matter of more pressing concern is that much of the Tory inheritance breaches international labour standards, to which this country - with astonishing irony - reaffirmed its commitment when, in 1998, it signed up to the ILO declaration of fundamental rights at work.
International supervisory bodies have criticised British restrictions on unions for breaching ILO convention 87 - a treaty ratified by a Labour government in 1949 - and the Council of Europe's social charter of 1961 - a treaty ratified by a Tory government in 1962. Such criticisms are provoked by the fact that British workers in dispute have limited rights to call on assistance from members of their own union and by the fact that a union in dispute has no right to call on other unions for support.
Moreover, British workers have no right to be reinstated if dismissed for taking part in a lawful strike, workers taking part in lawful action can be permanently replaced, even where the industrial action was caused by the conduct of the employer, and trade unions have only limited rights to protect terms and conditions of employment while their service is being privatised.
The CWU case graphically illustrates the additional burdens imposed on trade unions by the hideously complex rules relating to notices and ballots before industrial action can lawfully be taken.
As social inequality continues to grow, so trade unions need the freedom to protect workers against the immense power of global capital. But government support has been minimal and its recognition machinery criticised for failing to promote collective bargaining, which has halved since Labour was last in office.The Trade Union Rights and Freedoms Bill is a step in the right direction - a mild, modest and moderate measure dealing with only some of the worst breaches of international law, removing only some of the British constraints on the ability of trade unions to defend their members.Support the Bill, Mr Brown, for international standards and for fairness.