Speaking at the Tolpuddle Martyrs' Festival in Dorset on Sunday 21sr July, TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady said that the publication of the Lobbying Bill this week and its targeting of unions and the ordinary people they represent shows that the same spirit that tried to silence the Tolpuddle Six 179 years ago is still very much alive today.
In her speech highlighting the Tory-led coalition government’s plans to weaken the trade union movement as part of its war on working people and their rights, Frances gave the festival crowd a brief history lesson whilst examining the Coalition’s latest anti-Trade Unions legislation:
“The spirit of the Tolpuddle Martyrs is alive and well. But this week's publication of the Lobbying Bill proves that the spirit of the Squire is too.”, she said.
“Squire James Frampton was a landowner who feared that trade unionism threatened the power base of the wealthy classes and called on the full might of the law to quash it.
By 1834 forming a trade union was no longer illegal. But Frampton cited an obscure law prohibiting the swearing of oaths to secure the arrest, prosecution and transportation of six agricultural workers from Dorset. The real reason for their victimisation, of course, was that those brave land workers had dared to organise against pay cuts.
The Squire would have approved of the government's Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trades Union Administration Bill, published this week.”
Frances continued:
“A more honest title for it would surely be the Protection of Rich Conservative Party Donors and Gratuitous Attack on Trade Unions Bill. It offers a master class in protecting the wealthy and punishing organised labour.
The Bill contains so many loopholes it reads like a cheats' charter. It will require third-party lobbyist firms to publish client lists but not if they 'only' hold meetings with government special advisers and middle-ranking civil servants, and not if lobbying is deemed to make up a small part of the business.
But more importantly, the new Bill won't touch wealthy corporations as long as they directly employ lobbyists.”
Turning to the Tory strategy, she said:
“Despite his links with the tobacco industry and the current controversy over the government's handling of cigarette packaging, the Conservative Party strategist, Lynton Crosby, will suffer few sleepless nights.
The biggest source of public concern, the growing grip that rich and powerful individuals and corporations hold over policy making and politicians, has been ignored entirely in the Bill. Conservative Party donors Adrian Beecroft, John Nash and Circle Health shareholders can all sleep easy too.
Instead, the government has cynically turned its fire on the largest democratic membership movement in the country - trade unions. Unions will be required to 'visibly demonstrate' that they 'know who their members are and can communicate with them'."
Unions already have to produce annual audits of membership. But despite being the most heavily regulated voluntary organisations in the country, we can expect yet more regulation to come our way.”
Frances continued by warning of worst to come for the Trade Union movement:
“The Bill will be debated on the floor of the House during Congress week when the unions are away in Bournemouth. As some on the Conservative backbenches bay for more red blood, watch out for how calls for tougher membership record requirements turn into demands for more stringent requirements on industrial action balloting.
Labour leader Ed Miliband dubbed David Cameron the minister for 'Benson and Hedge funds' - a reminder of where the real dirt in politics lies. And from the bedroom tax to the refusal to cap bankers' bonuses, the ascendency of the Conservative Party's Thatcherite tendency may yet prove to be its ultimate downfall.
This latest attack on shop workers, teachers, nurses, postal staff and factory workers, and their unions, offends the British people's sense of fair play.”
She concluded by reminding the assembled crowd that we ignore history at our peril:
“If history offers a guide to the future then the government's Bill is a major political blunder. In the battle for the public's hearts and minds, the Tolpuddle trade unionists won the day with massive meetings, petitions and demonstrations forcing the Martyrs' return after their deportation overseas.
Here in Tolpuddle we celebrate six courageous workers who stood together against the Squire, and at the same time send a strong message to the government that this generation of working people are just as determined to defend our democratic unions.”
Source: TUC / Unionsafety / Socialist Party
