British Labour Issue

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24052, 14 September 1943, Page 4

British Labour Issue

A brief cable message, a few days ago, reported a resolution of the Trades Union Congress, strongly protesting against the British Government’s refusal to permit civil servants to affiliate with the congress, and urging the general council to press for the amendment of the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act, 1927, which prevents affiliation. The brevity of this message is a false measure of its importance. The full history of this issue goes back to the famous Osborne case, when the Courts upheld a union branch secretary who had resisted payment of the union’s political levy. The Legislature disapproved the decision of the judiciary and legalised the creation of union political funds and levies to support them, but on condition that any unwilling member should be free to “ contract out.” This measure discharged minority members from the obl’gation to finance political activities to which they objected, but could not make their situation easy; and victimisation was not uncommon. The extent of the grievances it created was one of the causes which, in the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act, 1927, led to the reversing of the process, so that the member who desires to pay the political levy “ contracts in.” He must declare that he wishes to pay. The act symbolises for the unions the reaction to the General Strike of 1926; and this is probably why the political levy provision has been so bitterly resented. It affects Civil Service organisations because the Treasury ruled that no civil servant could be a member of an association which had not a “ certificate of “ approval ” from the Treasury, and among the conditions of approval laid down were two prohibiting affiliation to labour bodies outside the service and the pursuit of political objects. Accordingly, the seven Civil Service unions broke their affiliation to the Trades Union Congress. Representations to suc-

cessive Prime Ministers and Conservative and Liberal party leaders have failed to secure the lifting of the barrier between them and the congress. It is clear from the form of the resolution quoted that the stage of representations has not closed; but preceding events suggest that the stage of challenge and attack may be very near. The Union of Post Office Workers formally applied for affiliation earlier this year. “No othei country possessing “ the principles of democracy,” said Sir Walter Citrine, speaking at the annual conference of Trade Councils, “ has ever found it necessary “or desirable to detach the Civil “ Service worker from his col- “ leagues in the general trade “ union movement. Now we have “ decided that, whatever the risks “may be, we are going once again “to re-establish direct connexion “ with the Civil Service trade “ unions.” What those risks involve Sir Walter indicated when he said that the power of the trade union movement would be determinedly used to protect civil servants against any “ revengeful punish- “ ment ” and any “ deterrent “ measures.” This, of course, applies to Treasury action, disqualifying from the Civil Service any member who insists on adhering to an uncertificated association; and, as law and regulation now stand, a Civil Service union granted affiliation to the Trades Union Congress must lose its certificate. These are the facts, stated without regard to the principles or to the issues, “ large, far reaching, and “ even delicate,” as Mr Churchill described them, which are opened in the field of relations between the State and its servants. One point, however, should be emphasised. This matter is critically important because, like the difference between the Government and the unions on the Beveridge Report, it directly affects the stability of the Con-servative-Liberal-Labour war coalition. There are heavy strains upon it. The danger is that this may be the strain, not the heaviest but the final one, which it cannot stand.