When the union asks you to cross a picket line

Two large public sector unions are on strike on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. UNISON and Unite are taking action against a 2.45% pay rise. Now I’m very sceptical about the UNISON bureaucracy’s willingness to have a serious fight with New Labour in defence of their members’ salaries. They seem to be far too…

Liam

July 14, 2008

3–5 minutes

UNISON and Unite members often work in buildings with members of other unions, for example lots of non-teaching staff in schools where most teachers are members of the NUT. The NUT itself has already had a one day strike this year on the issue of pay and, in the fullness of time, may have another one as part of its pay campaign. Here is an extract from a letter from Christine Blower, the union’s acting general secretary advising members what they should do on Wednesday and Thursday:

It is possible that schools may be picketed on the day of the strike. Pickets should not prevent members of the NUT from attending work if their schools are open. Members of the NUT have not been balloted for action on this day and any refusal on their part to cross picket lines would not be lawful action. The NUT would be legally required to repudiate it.

The purpose of any picket should not be to persuade NUT members not to enter school. Any such persuasion should be directed only at members of Unison and Unite taking lawful action on 16 and 17 July. Some pickets may simply want to inform you of why they are taking action.

This is above and beyond the call of duty. New Labour’s anti unions don’t actually oblige her to do this. All a union bureaucrat has to do to stay on the right side of the law is to refrain from instructing or encouraging members to respect another union’s picket line. The anti-union laws deal with inducing other people to act in breach of their contract of employment and that’s what you do when you refuse to cross another union’s picket line. This leaves any groups or individuals doing this open to possible disciplinary action and a judgement is required on that. The time leading up to a strike is when a political case can be made for defying the law and refusing to cross any union’s picket line. In some parts of the country this is relatively easy. Birmingham LEA has indicated that it will not take any disciplinary action against members of other unions who refuse to cross UNISON and Unite’s picket lines. In other areas the political argument has to be won and this requires a fight with the leadership of virtually every union in Britain as they all have a terror of offering a fight to the government.

We are seeing a modest but real increase in levels of industrial militancy, albeit from an abysmally low level. The tanker drivers have recently demonstrated that it is possible to win a quick victory, in defiance of the law, when sufficient determination is present. This is a perfect moment to start arguing for defiance of the anti-union laws locally and nationally and to honour any picket line we encounter.

By way of contrast here is the advice from the National Union of Journalists:

To all NUJ members in local government

Many of you working in local government will be joint members with Unison. I wish you every success with your industrial action this week. You deserve a fair pay award.

For those working in local government who are not joint members or freelance members not covered by the ballot, the anti-union laws make it unlawful for the NUJ to urge you to support Unison’s action or take any action which would put you in breach of your contract.

In past disputes staff and freelance NUJ members have however themselves taken a decision to act alongside their Unison colleagues and respect picket lines in the best traditions of the trade union movement.

I am sure all NUJ members will make a similar decision and uphold those principles of solidarity to seek to secure an improved pay deal for all.

In the event that any NUJ member suffers any detriment as a result of taking part in the current action they should contact their national official. In an emergency call 020 7278 7916 or email info@nuj.org.uk.

Jeremy Dear
General Secretary

18 responses to “When the union asks you to cross a picket line”

bill j

July 14, 2008 at 5:28 pm

Not just Birmingham. My understanding is that Manchester CC have also agreed that they will not discipline any members of other unions honouring Unison picket lines.
So much for the left running the NUT.

LikeLike

Reply
tonyc

July 14, 2008 at 6:23 pm

When ASLEF and RMT were getting on quite well a few years ago and the RMT was on strike, a circular went out from ASLEF HO to all reps on the underground, and went up on all noticeboards.

It was short and sweet, and said, pretty much word for word, “during the RMT’s strike, I would like to remind members of the tradition in the trade union movement of not crossing a sister union’s picket lines”.

That’s all.

Hasn’t happened since – the TSSA regularly puts out notices to staff, when people of the same grade but in a different union are on strike, saying “you MUST report for duty during the strike”.

LikeLike

Reply
martin ohr

July 14, 2008 at 7:13 pm

Hold on here before you rush to dismiss the NUT completely. Activists have been working very hard to make sure that head teachers understand that if the unison staff are on strike then the school cannot be open for business. This will lead to widescale closures of schools where the NUT left is strong -such as in Leeds for example. It’s sad that Christine Blower puts out such a statement -although wholly predictable. 10 or more years ago AWL teachers produced a plan for the first 100 days of a left controlled NUT, one of the points of that was to replace full-time union staff who hold key positions of power but are unelected. Left general secretaries are easy prey for union managers who seek to avoid strikes and any other sort of confrontation at all costs.

Throughout the whole time the 100 days plan was under discussion the rest of the NUT left refused to take any interest or scoffed at the whole idea that change was required to transform NUT into an active fighting union.

Tonyc -are you already doing solidarity work with the RMT cleaners? Is your branch advising drivers and station staff not to cross their picket lines, do you want to get involved if I pass some details over?

LikeLike

Reply
Phil

July 14, 2008 at 8:59 pm

I’m surprised at this. At our local primary the NUT’s very weak – the letter that went out before their strike said ‘Ms X, Ms Y and Ms Z won’t be in school that day, but all other classes will proceed as normal’. (I’m not sure if all the other teachers are in other unions or if they’re not unionised.) But the whole place is closing Wednesday and Thursday.

LikeLike

Reply
Jason

July 15, 2008 at 3:43 pm

There have been many examples of NUT members refusing to cross picket lines and action has rarely been taken against members except loss of pay.

When Christine Blower was asked directly in Bolton NUT, when she was DGS, about crossing picket lines she said that it was a matter of conscience and that she would never tell someone to cross a picket line but that the union could not officially- legally tell them not to.

The letter is a disgrace – it exceeds the legal requirements of the anti-union laws as it happens and even if that were not the case tihs is a point of principle. Picket lines should not be crossed.

Martin I agree on unelected posts-Christine Blower though is elected as DGS (and of course acting up as Acting GS)- she should be held to account both by the left on the executive and the members who should hold any on the executive to account who don’t repudiate this message.

It is particularly sickening as NUT pickets clearly are mnounted to encourage members of other unions to respect workers’ democracy – they are our workplaces we should have the power to shut them down and in fact do.

LikeLike

Reply
Andy BH

July 15, 2008 at 8:52 pm

Blower’s letter is highly misleading on the law whether by accident or design. Teachers not crossing UNISON/UNITE picket lines are not acting unlawfully. The NUT telling them not to cross is what would probably be unlawful, if the employer was minded to seek an injunction.

The way the law stands there is no law against unions involved in a dispute asking for workers in other unions (or no union) to support their strike. What the law stops is those other people’s unions telling them to do so, which of course is what would be really effective. In my UNISON branch we are getting support from GMB members and GMB have secured an undertaking that there will be no victimisation of their members who refuse to cross picket lines – but GMB officials won’t actually tell their members not to cross. An example of being as helpful as possible without actually confronting the anti-union laws.

Still, I agree that the NUT leadership’s behaviour should not be laid at the door of good NUT activists.

LikeLike

Reply
martin ohr

July 15, 2008 at 10:07 pm

Jason & Andy, the point I was making is that despite whatever intentions Christine might have had, general secretaries soon come under the influence of union ‘staff’ who ‘advise’ them on what legally they are required to do. On a more trivial level I remember one of my friends at university proudly proclaiming himself to be the first gay president of our union, his first act as president was to remove all gay safe sex advise from the student handbook under pressure from the union staff.

Jason, if you’re interested I’ll get one of the awl NUT people to send you the old 100 days stuff- it’s something they intended to revisit after aprils conference, don’t know if they have done yet. As I said, at the time we were pushing this stuff -maybe 10 years ago- the STA thought we were literally mad, and as I recall largely refused to even let it be discussed.

Hopefully though despite the NUT and GMB advice tomorrows strikes will be rock solid and unison activists will be putting out pickets at places where other union members have the opportunity show solidarity.

LikeLike

Reply
Jason

July 16, 2008 at 4:02 pm

I understand your point, Martin, but I am saying that we still need to make sure as far as possible this sort of inaccurate advice isn’t given out. Send me the stuff by all means- jason2inethiopia at yahoo.co.uk

LikeLike

Reply
Jason

July 19, 2008 at 7:59 am

Also whilst the union bureaucracy is partly the machine- the elgal experts, the non-elected officials etc- this doesn’t let the elected officials off the hook. You come across bit like it’s not the King it’;s his advisers.

The 16th/17th would have been much much better if NUT had had an official ballot to come out- this was blocked by the executive including many on the left (though 9 voted for it)- the next best thing though far short of an official strike would have been a campaign not to cross picket lines and working with Unison to close down the schools.

In my school a lot of people said they wouldn’t cross a picket line and probably most wouldn’t with a bit of collective spirit. Unfortunately no picket line was mounted! The caretaker was sympathetic but worked because ‘everyone elese was’ and the catering staff seemed scared to speak as the manager intervened and said no one was striking and what had I heard etc. However about half local schools were shut including one next to us and some had picket lines.

Fior autumn we need to build for big yes votes and also co-ordination at the rank and file level with workplace, town and regional meetings to plan actions including not crossing picket lines.

Also a campaign that the Convention of the Left might want to take up.

LikeLike

Reply
Stuart King

July 19, 2008 at 3:16 pm

I am not sure why Martin Ohr has become an apologist for Christine Blower. General secretarties are not prisoners of their “officials” but can issue letters calling for solidarity, just as Jeremy Dear’ did.

You don’t blame the “advisors”, Martin, you blame the General Secretary of the NUT for doing the governments anti union job for them. Is the AWL now following the SWP line of cosying up to “left” general secretaries?

LikeLike

Reply
martin ohr

July 19, 2008 at 7:40 pm

Stuart, really, can you FLIPPING read or what?

I never made any apology for Christine Blower whatsoever, what I said was that it was entirely predictable that it would happen and that one of the reasons is that because of the officials. The thought that me saying this amounts to “AWL cosying up to “left” general secretaries?” is absolutely ridiculous sectarian BALDERDASH.

There is no point in having any sort of discussion here if you are prepared to write such utter rubbish. The context of my orginal point is to try to understand that for marxists, getting elected to be general sectretary or having a majority on the NEC is not enough to transform a union from the contradictory role they play.

MARTIN – I’D ASSUMED YOU’D WORKED OUT WHAT THE RULES ARE HERE. ONE MORE OUTBURST LIKE THAT AND YOU WILL HAVE OUTSTAYED YOUR WELCOME – LIAM

LikeLike

Reply
Stuart King

July 19, 2008 at 8:05 pm

Martin Ohr said:

“Left general secretaries are easy prey for union managers who seek to avoid strikes and any other sort of confrontation at all costs.”

and again

“the point I was making is that despite whatever intentions Christine might have had, general secretaries soon come under the influence of union ’staff’ who ‘advise’ them on what legally they are required to do.”

My apologies for thinking you were saying that Christine Blower was a left general secretary who just had bad advice. I clearly completely misread what you actually wrote.

LikeLike

Reply
bill j

July 19, 2008 at 8:40 pm

Actually I misread the sentence just as you did, so maybe its the case that Ohr can’t write, rather than we can’t read. But either way I really don’t think you should apologise to Martin Ohr, whoever he is Stuart, given that he can’t write a sentence without swearing.

Now that is typical of the AWL.

They’re rude and they’re angry and they don’t mind telling the world that they’re rude and angry.

LikeLike

Reply
Jason

July 19, 2008 at 11:48 pm

Though actually I;m not sure if ‘BALDERDASH’ is swearing- my Gran used to say though outside of literature and my gran I’ve never heard anyone else say it.

Unless I am to assume this is Liam’s bowdlerised version? May be.

Personally, I’m not for generalising from an individual to the group s/he belongs to (though people will almost inevitably do this) but for working with people where we can and having sharp but ideally polite disagreeements when necessary.

However, the substantive point is to think and discuss how we can build a rank and file network in the unions and organise at grassroots level to organise with the elected officials when possible against them when necessary. We should hold our leaders to account and begin organising ourselves at the grassroots level.

Good result in Bolton http://permanentrevolution.net/entry/2221

Also North West Shop Stewards Network regional meeting today signed up to support, promote and sponsor Convention of the Left. Good direction even though we still have a lot of work to actually build it into a fighting body- every move in the right direction is to be welcomed however.

Let’s get busy organising cross union committees to organise pcikets, to refuse to cross them in defaince of anti-union laws and notch up some successes to start making the union something workers want to be part of!

LikeLike

Reply
tonyc

July 20, 2008 at 9:31 am

“Though actually I;m not sure if ‘BALDERDASH’ is swearing”

Keep up, Jason!

LikeLike

Reply
Jason

July 20, 2008 at 10:16 am

Have you heard of humour, Tony? However, such piffle aside (to use another word my gran sometimes uttered) there are serious tasks ahead to actually organise for rank and file groupings, to organise pickets, to organise campaigns not to cross them.

LikeLike

Reply
tonyc

July 20, 2008 at 12:00 pm

*sigh*

LikeLike

Reply
Jason

July 20, 2008 at 12:12 pm

what does that mean? Is it not important to undertake practical taks to rebuild class struggle?

Or am I missing some very clever irony here?

LikeLike

Reply