LONDON, Reuter :Britain’s Trade Union leader’s begin their annual meeting in the seaside resort of Brighton, determined to rally behind the opposition Labour party and to defeat the ruling Conservatives at the next general election.
Leading members of the Trades Union Co (TUC) have held a series of private meetings in the past week to work out compromise deals and set aside Union’s issues in a new sense of pragmatism designed to secure a Labour victory.
The leadership of the TUC, umbrella group for the British Labour Movement, wants unions to present a united front, ready to cooperate with and approve of the policies of a future Labour government.
Labour leaders Neil Kinnock will appeal for unity between left and right when he addresses the meeting on Tuesday.
Labour sees the TUC meeting as the opening of its campaign for the next general election which Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher must call by 1988.
Since coming to power in 1979, Thatcher has led an antiunion Crusade, transforming British industrial laws, curbing unions’ power and splitting the Labour movement, Thatcher has seriously weakened the political muscle of the movement which has seen its membership fall to 9.5 million, its lowest in 16 years, The decline is continuing.
The TUC says, “It is aware of the need for a Labour government to restore its declining fortunes and scrap some of the harsh antiunion legislation introduced under Thatcher.
The main thrust of recent legislation has been to remove traditional immunities of the Trade Union Movement by limiting picketing and making union funds vulnerable to seizure for sympathy strikes and stoppages called without ballots. ‘The defeat last year of Britain’s coal miners, the traditional shook troops of the movement who staged a yearlong strike against pit closures, inflicted further wounds.
Britain’s record unemployment has ushered in a new era of industrial pragmatism among unions keen to preserve members’ jobs ‘and adapt to work conditions demanded by modern technology and market forces.
Right Wing Unions are advocating what they refer to as a new realism in industrial relations and the abandonment of hardline tactics which they blame for the exodus of workers from the TUC.
The TUC moved to the brink of a split at its annual meeting last year when the moderate engineering union faced expulsion for accepting government funds for prestrike ballots.
Article extracted from this publication >>September 5, 1986
