W
POST APPING
WE SAY
Autumn 2011 • 25 year anniversary special
Everyone was outraged when news broke that the News of the World had ordered the hacking of slain teenager Milly Dowler’s mobile phone. Solemnly, it was agreed that something must be done – a lengthy inquiry presided over by a High Court judge. In four years’ time Lord Justice Leveson will come up with some wise pronouncements on regulating the press. It’s a fair bet they will not include a reform that would benefit all working people, not just the media. That would be the right of the workforce to be represented by a trade union to protect not just their jobs, their pay and working conditions, but their work as well.
Before Wapping, print unions at News International had exercised a check through their Right of Reply policy as well as being active and vigilant on behalf of their members. It is no coincidence that the media with the highest professional standards – the Guardian, Financial Times, the Independent and Telegraph groups, the BBC and ITV News – are union strongholds. But the unions can’t get back into NI without a change in the law. Murdoch has set up a stooge ‘sweetheart union’ to block them. Staff members would have to challenge their managers to get this thrown out, and the unions would have to win a ballot without any contact with staff or any ability to counter the bosses’ pressure and propaganda. Media regulation from outside does need toughening up. But the best way to curb the excesses of the popular press is to allow unions to give staff a voice in the workplace itself.
The toothless tiger that cannot control Murdoch THE WAPPING dispute highlighted the fundamental feature of UK labour law that virtually every strike is a ‘repudiatory’ breach of the workers’ contracts of employment.
This allows the employer to treat the workers as no longer employed – without going to the trouble of sacking them. It is a remarkable state of affairs that has brought condemnation by the supervisory bodies of the international treaties on workers’ and union rights that the UK has ratified: the ILO, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the European Social Charter. The UK has had a law against unfair dismissal for 30 years but it is a toothless tiger. The average compensation awarded, where unfair dismissal is proved, is a few thousand pounds, and reinstatement ordered in less than one in 200 cases. Murdoch was able to sidestep any risk of unfair dismissal claims by making demands on the unions which they could not conceivably accept, so provoking a dispute and industrial action. This allowed him to treat the entire workforce as sacked (by their own hand) and shut them out of making unfair dismissal claims.
Mike Hicks at Wapping: his notorious jailing exploited police experience in the miners’ strike
INSTITUTE OF EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS
Rupert Murdoch built his worldwide media empire on the backs of his UK workforce, by getting rid of them and their unions. This did not only deprive the workers of their jobs and their rights. It also handed unchecked power to his editors and managers.
Toothless: There’s a law against unfair dismissal but only one in 200 applicants are reinstated
Employment law expert John Hendy, QC, explains how the law enabled Murdoch to carry out his Wapping coup
News International also exploited the Thatcher laws which bar all secondary action and secondary picketing. These laws too have been internationally condemned repeatedly but they continue to apply. Murdoch obtained an injunction against the TGWU which had instructed its TNT driver members not to cross picket lines at Wapping. He got an injunction against the print unions’ instructions not to handle Murdoch papers, and the courts punished disregard of the injunction by fining the unions and sequestrating SOGAT’s assets. SOGAT eventually apologised and the instructions not to handle Murdoch papers had to be withdrawn. That was a turning point. Murdoch also obtained injunctions against mass picketing of the Wapping Plant and picket numbers were limited to six. The police tactics and use of the criminal law (particularly the jailing of Mike Hicks) were notorious and exploited previous experience with the miners. Wapping illustrated to perfection the balance of the UK law on industrial action, irretrievably tilted to favour the employer. The failure of the trade union movement to win the dispute was mirrored by its subsequent failure to change the law and redress the balance during the Labour governments. Hope of legislative change has evaporated unless and until the trade unions decide to persuade Labour to commit to bringing our law into line with international law. ??John Hendy QC is standing counsel to UNITE and the NUJ. He represented Mike Hicks and others in the picketing injunction case referred to. He was a legal observer at the Saturday night demonstrations at Wapping.
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