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13
April 2010
Your twin editorials (Libel
laws: Judging the truth, and Rail strike: Sharp end of the
law, 2 April) showed the Guardian facing both ways on the
law and freedom. Rightly welcoming Dr Simon Singh's victory
over the spectre of judges ruling on legitimate scientific
debate – "an Orwellian ministry of truth" –
you simultaneously celebrate Kafkaesque anti-union legislation
that led the high court on 1 April to grant an injunction
against RMT strikes in our continuing safety dispute with
Network Rail.
In the 19th century "Manchester Liberals" were
accused of defending freedom of speech and association right
up to the point that workers actually demanded it. Is the
Guardian now reverting to type?
You describe Bob Crow as "trigger-happy" and "characteristically
belligerent" – a distortion of the truth. It is
16 years since the last national rail strike. More seriously,
you misleadingly assert: "No union that conducts ballots
properly according to the reasonable requirements of the law
would be in danger of being injuncted." Were newspapers
required to give seven days' notice of publication of reports
into powerful vested interests, or provide judges with a database
of their readership by occupation and location to allow the
subject of investigation to make arrangements, there would
be neither a "free press" nor "reasonable"
law.
RMT members are fighting to defend railway safety, jobs and
standards against Network Rail's cavalier attempt at 21% "efficiency
savings" demanded by a government-appointed rail regulator
which recently provided safety validation for its own pre-ordered
cuts.
Some of my members think this may be a dangerous conflict
of interest, perhaps one worth investigation by a serious
newspaper. But the Guardian says this strike was not "the
right way of ensuring that staff grievances are properly addressed".
We know you share offices with Network Rail, but you appear
to be sharing your editorial line as well.
The statement that "Bringing the trade unions under
the rule of law was one of the great struggles of the 20th
century" is a postmodern caricature of which any Thatcher-era
union basher would approve. Winning democratic rights for
workers to join trade unions and withdraw their labour is
the great struggle, waged for over two centuries.
Britain's anti-union laws, like its libel laws, are scandalous
anachronisms that protect the rich and powerful from being
accountable to the rest of society.
Mrs Justice Sharp's judgment in Network Rail v RMT increases
the scope of anti-union laws by invoking "proportionality"
(a remarkable new development in UK law imported from recent
European court judgments, allowing judges to assess effects
of strike action) since Network Rail emphasised the disruption
that rail strikes will cause. This will have huge repercussions
for public sector workers opposing post-general-election spending
cuts and is a Trojan horse to outlaw effective strike action
to defend key services.
The ability of workers to protect their interests –
and the public interest – by withdrawing their labour
is a hallmark of a democratic society. My union will continue
vigorously to defend its members' interests in delivering
a railway safe for workers and the travelling public.
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