Defending "secondary action" - 6 comments

Secondary action - "[...] strike action that is initiated by workers in one industry and supported by workers in a separate but related industry or profession. [...] the purpose of the strike is to support, and express sympathy for, the primary strikers." - is one of those issues that particularly polarises opinion. It's vitally important, say the bolder bloggers on the Labour left ("even" Roy Hattersley here); on the other hand, to those who believe themselves to be moderates, legalising secondary action exemplifies "a return to the 1970s": disaster would ensue.

I'd agree with those who say that to fight David Cameron on this territory would be insane: secondary action is still political death with the press the way it is. Still, it's an interesting issue, and perhaps - far from being a transitional demand - it's quite justifiable in a liberal-left framework, where other union-friendly policies are not.

Let's put it this way: in the UK, the right to join, and campaign within, a trade union (or any group) is a right due to all individuals. The rights of a trade union come through being a vessel for individuals to exercise their rights, providing the union acts democratically, and providing also that individuals who don't agree with their union's actions are not penalised - for example, by being coerced to support a strike that the majority have approved (unions must adhere to this latter provision, I'm less sure that members always feel bound by it.)

So the individual's right is to enjoy a relationship with a union, with individual secondary action simply an application of that existing right. Though they will be affected in practice by individuals' actions, employers are irrelevant to the question of individuals' rights, as are the employers of the friends and "comrades" the individual chooses to support for whatever reason. The union's secondary action rights are plainly an aggregation of the rights of their members, democratically expressed.

Critics might say: "where will it end, if unions can strike on the basis of sympathy with others, rather than distinct disputes?" This sounds very much like a "rights, but only so far" argument. Rights are there to be pushed as far as they will go. If they can't be pushed, they're worthless, and at the very same time, they cease to be rights.

Trade unionists must have the right to invoke secondary action - whether it may succeed is another matter altogether. Withholding the ability of a union to engage in secondary action is breaching the rights of the majority of members who invoked it.

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However, trade unionists do not own the right to achieve any particular outcome on behalf of their union, because other parties - employers, customers, the general public - are involved. "Rights" over other individuals cannot be bought without being paid for. Thus, once a strike begins, employers, customers, and the general public must have the same freedom to bypass ("break" if you insist) the action if they don't agree with it.

Furthermore, when the rights of non-strikers are curtailed by public-sector monopolies - passengers have no choice of London Underground train providers, for instance - Governments are obliged to intervene. All of this is potentially very problematic for unions: extending individuals' ability to retaliate (legal action?) against strike action could seriously blunt the strike weapon.

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I have changed my line somewhat from last August, when I expressed suspicion at calls for "trade union freedom", but I believe I've provided a robust, but "neutral" justification for the idea of trade union rights and freedom this time. Clearly that approach gives to unions with one hand, and take away with another. The reason I'm still suspicious of the campaign is that even if unions do justify secondary action on the basis of individual rights, I see no sign that supporters recognise the same rights within the general public, nor do they appear to have any concerns over the disproportionate power that unions would be able to wield by using secondary action within public-sector monopolies, especially when both the Government and the economy are relatively weak.

In practice, unions that demand - at Labour's lowest ebb - the return of long-lost rights, are pissing in the wind. However "energised" success might make them, their influence will end the moment the Conservatives win the next General Election, and how well they survive over the next five or ten years - under a Government for whom libertarianism works in only one direction, to their political friends - is an interesting, though unpalatable question.