Law Lords strike out tube action

A London Underground worker calls for action to be escalated in defence of wages, conditions and a public service.

Law Lord Sullivan's Christmas gift to London Underground Limited of an injunction against the RMT's planned strike action was completely predictable. For the past ten years LUL workers have been used as a scratch board on which to sharpen judicial claws. Many of the anti-union interpretations of Tory legislation have arisen from the action of LUL workers, usually RMT.

Justice Sullivan argued firstly that the RMT had changed its demands since the original ballot, secondly that too much time had elapsed between the original action and the proposed New Year's Eve action, and thirdly that the dispute was political. In a munificent display of concern for public interest, he also commented on his responsibility not to inconvenience passengers on New Year's Eve.

The first point is too silly to refute. The RMT demands clearly centre on guarantees of terms and conditions for its members. The second point was addressed by Bob Crow, Assistant General Secretary of the RMT, when he was interviewed after the decision. He pointed out that the original action had been suspended in order to return to the bargaining table. But which table? LUL insists that its hands are tied, and that it's up to the Government to make guarantees. The Government insists that the appropriate place to negotiate is with the employer. With this sort of industrial ping-pong, it's not surprising there was a long lapse between the original action and the New Year's Eve strike call.

To a certain extent, LUL management has a point. It is up to the Government to enact legislation to guarantee two of the most important points in dispute - pension rights and retention of travel facility. These require legislation because of the tax implications. While John Prescott has made noises about doing it, we have not yet seen these guarantees. Perhaps he's worried about scaring off potential fat-cats, who would be put off by having to honour these commitments.

Bob Crow also pointed out the implications of this ruling for future disputes: unions will now be discouraged from returning to the bargaining table for fear that some Law Lord will take exception to the time lapse between two periods of industrial action.

Most galling is the third claim about the underlying political motives of the dispute. What do you do when your boss is the Government and it is proposing changes which will worsen your terms and conditions of work? This decision gives a clear and sinister message: if the boss is also a Secretary of State, don't bother trying to defend your rights, because you run the risk of appearing "political", and falling foul of present legislation.

In the NHS, UNISON has run into similar problems. Workers at University College London NHS trust voted by a clear majority to take strike action over similar issues to those of concern to the RMT. The union is worried about terms and conditions of the employees who were to be transferred to a new consortium. They wanted guarantees of no contractual changes for staff.

The trust argued that this was a "political" strike. The court rejected this but still agreed to grant an injunction to the trust on other grounds. They claimed that a trade dispute cannot make demands on future employers, and cannot make demands for future employees. The definition of a "trade dispute" is so precise that a union cannot try to take preventive measures to protect its members. Yet again the goalposts are moved to the detriment of the working class.

In 1984, NUR (as it was) carried out a one-day strike against the transfer of London Transport from the GLC to the Department of Transport. This was lawful at the time, even though the change did not involve the sort of historic upheaval proposed by John Prescott. I will nail my colours to the mast: even if I knew that my terms and conditions were guaranteed for the lifetime of my employment, I would want to take action against privatisation. I would want the right, as a worker, to express my concern over the ownership of a public service. But with the Tories' anti-union legislation still in force, we're paying the price for not having had united union action to defeat it earlier.

So the struggle goes on. On 5th February, there will be a lobby of John Prescott's office at noon. The RMT has already sent out new ballot papers, based on very clear demands. Unless some judge finds another reason to rule it out of order, expect industrial action sometime in February or March.

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