Unofficial Strikes Open Way To Fascism

Northern Advocate, 27 April 1944, Page 5

Unofficial Strikes Open Way To Fascism

(Rec. noon) LONDON, April 26. A warning that participants in unofficial strikes might be opening the door to Fascism was given by Mr James Crawford in his presidential address to the Scottish Trade Union Congress. He said sections of trade union membership were arbitrarilyrepudiating the machinery for collective bargaining, apparently believing that such action stamped them as militant trade unionists. That was a dangerous delusion, not only to the war effort but also to the standing influence of unions.

Mr Arthur Horner, in his presidential address to the South Wales Miners’ Federation said the only thing on the domestic front which could rob us of victory in 1944 was a coal shortage. Mr Horner blamed the Government’s decision to disown the results of negotiations between miners and owners on anomalies arising from the national award. “That decision was a major political blunder, from which we have been struggling ever since to recover. However, in the present circumstances, we should have resisted provocation and refused to resort to strike action. Deep down in the hearts of our people there is a firm, unassailable conviction that only when the State has taken over the mines will there be that planning and efficiency and humane, considerate treatment for miners which alone can guarantee that Britain will get the coal it requires now and in the future.”

The National Executive Committee of the Labour Party at a meeting today approved the new regulation dealing with fomenting of wartime strikes.