Bill strikes at right to picket, says F.O.L.

Press, 6 August 1981, Page 3

Bill strikes at right to picket, says F.O.L.

Parliamentary reporter

The Summary Offences Bill, now before a Parliamentary select committee, struck at the right to strike by prohibiting peaceful picketing, said the Federation of Labour yesterday in stibmissions to the committee.

“The importance of picketing lies in its ability to make strikes effective,” the 1 submission said. J'Once workers decide that the law is weighted in -favour of employers, it will become unworkable.” Where force was used that disrupted public order in “furtherance of workers’ interests,” existing law was adequate. But the police and the criminal law should have no rightful jurisdiction in industrial disputes in which peaceful picketing was legitimate. The bill imposes a maximum fine of $lOOO or maximum jail term of three months on persons who try to compel anyone to do or not to do something he has a legal right to do or not do by — among other things — watching or besetting the place where a person works.

The 1973 Statutes,- Revision Committeee had said that ,it was “firmly of the view that provisions touching on industrial relations are quite out of place in general legislation on summary offences,” the submission said.

It said, the aims of picketing were, communicating the existence of a strike to those who might be unaware of it, persuading non-strikers to join the strike, and preventing, by moral pressure, “scabs” from working. “To deny workers the right to picket peacefully is to put the full, force of the law behind the employer,” the submission said.

The submission sought the removal of the words, “offend” and “insult,” from the bill’s provisions on disorderly behaviour.

Their retention could “catch” the peaceful demonstrator merely trying to express his views. It would be offensive to workers to be called “scabs,” but inappropriate in an industrial context for the insulted person to exacerbate the dispute

by making a complaint based on the section:

The federation was concerned that the clause making it a criminal offence to resist a policeman in the course of his duty could be used to break pickets. It approved the recent decision of Judge Jaine in Wellington in dismissing charges laid against seven anti-Springbok tour protesters for obstructing a footpath. The Judge found that the pursuit of political protest could be a reasonable defence.

The federation opposed four clauses in the bill which based charges on earlier convictions of a suspect. “It is, as a general principle, undesirable that those who have been convicted of criminal offences, and who have been punished for them, should be under greater liability than others,” it said. The clause, “relies on the inference that those who have previous convictions are more likely to commit further crimes.”