Employment Act 1982 - Response

Response

A Trades Union Congress Special Conference was held on 5 April 1982, where trade union leaders voted to support an eight-point plan to oppose the Act. A campaign pack entitled Fight Tebbit's Law was issued, and a travelling exhibition toured trade union conferences. The TUC encouraged trade unions to refuse to vote in closed shop ballots; to refuse public money for ballots under the Employment Act 1980; to gain the support of other trade unions in disputes; to forbid their members to sit on Industrial Tribunals concerning cases on the closed shop; and to help the TUC co-ordinate industrial action in support of any trade union facing legal action by an employer. A levy of ten pence per trade union member was raised to finance this campaign, which raised over one million pounds to 'Kill the Bill'. Trade union leaders voted overwhelmingly at the TUC Conference on 7 September 1982 for militant resistance—including industrial action—to the Act.

The TUC General Secretary, Len Murray, said of the TUC campaign:

We cannot be sure that we can deliver... has even found credence among many of our members who value what their own unions do for them but are, paradoxically and illogically, at best apathetic and at worst sympathetic to the Government's purpose. We have a major job alerting trade unionists themselves to the real nature of the proposals.

The President of the National Union of Mineworkers, Arthur Scargill, said of the Act: There is only one response that this movement can give, faced with this legislation. We should say "We will defy the law".

Chairman of the TUC Employment Committee, Bill Keys, said:

I will say publicly anywhere, if it is a bad law that doesn't nurture good, that doesn't look after the interests of ordinary people in this nation I will oppose the law and I will influence other people to oppose the law...if that means breaking the law I will do it.

The TUC President for 1982, Frank Chapple, disagreed:

Those who advocate that bad laws should not be obeyed—in circumstances where such "bad" laws are enacted by a democratically elected government—are putting at risk the entire conception of civilised society. That directly challenges democracy...the way to change bad laws is to change the government that has made them.

Judging by opinion polls, the Act had the support of the general public and trade unionists. A MORI poll in November 1981 revealed that 79% of the public and 77% of trade unionists agreed that regular ballots should be held in existing closed shops; 70% of the public and 61% of trade unionists agreed that a company should be allowed to sue a trade union if it lost money in dispute which was unconnected to the company; and 76% of the public and 70% of trade unionists agreed that companies should be able to sue trade unions which broke agreements.

A Marplan poll showed that half of the trade unionists questioned opposed unlawful action in defiance of the Act. Less than 50% of trade unionists in a MORI poll supported the TUC campaign, and a Gallup poll found that over 50% of the public and trade unionists believed that leaders of trade union who broke the law should be sent to prison.

Tebbit in his memoirs says of the Act: "I have no doubt that Act was my greatest achievement in Government and I believe it has been one of the principal pillars on which the Thatcher economic reforms have been built."