The Laings Lock Out Committee of 1985-86 marked the
last serious defiance of the anti-union laws. It was led by Brian Higgins of
the Building Worker Group.
Undoubtedly the most important and significant struggle led
by the Building Worker (BW) group and worth a separate mention was the 'Laings
Lock Out Committee' of 1985-86 where our cumulative and collective experience
was most thoroughly and seriously put to the test.
Our bricklaying gang, all BW supporters, was sacked by
sub-contractors Jonoroy on a site in Surbiton in October 1985 on the
instructions of Laing Homes, who were quite openly and blatantly operating the
blacklist against us.
We went into immediate struggle. With our very limited
numbers and resources it was obvious we would have to fight a guerrilla, hold
the site we were on and hit and run, war with Laing and the Building Employers
Confederation. We sought and got support from many industrial and political
sources.
We formed the 'Laings Lock Out Committee'. We were so
successful in our use of the flying picket tactic that we halted or severely
restricted production on 8 sites in London. In all, we picketed 14 different
sites. The outcome of this was Jonoroy (Laings actually) offered work on a
Galliford site in Banstead in Surrey, ostensibly until the site in Surbiton was
ready, or so we were told. We knew the employers would come back at us in the
very short term. We had to put a picket on the Galliford job to get on it. We
had to threaten a strike after we got on it to ensure they took on a hod
carrier who was with us, but hadn't been at the beginning of the Lock Out.
They told us to go back to Surbiton, as that site was ready.
We went to Surbiton. We were told "there's no way Higgins and the others
would work on a Laing site". Our picketing was restarted and stepped up.
We hit the British Library and Hays Wharf among others. The employers were
shitting themselves.
They took out a high court injunction against us that
threatened us with two years in jail and fines of many hundreds of thousands of
pounds if we did not stop picketing, meeting and even speaking about the Lock
Out. The injunction was issued in February 1986.
We took a decision in line with official TUC, UCATT and TGWU
policy at that time (though they always supported the anti-union laws in
practice) and much more to the point in defence of the basic freedoms of the
right to speak, meet and picket, to defy the injunction and carry on. We
stepped up picketing, meeting and speaking.
In the months before the injunction was issued we had
visited many workplaces, and rank and file trade union organisations, and had
addressed many mass meetings. So much groundwork had been done and many workers
knew of and supported our struggle against the blacklist. However when the high
court injunction was issued on the basis of the 1982 anti-union laws, the main
issue then became the overt political one of the anti-union laws themselves.
Thus, we stepped up our campaign on this basis and got a tremendous response
from workplace after workplace, mass meeting after mass meeting. We had always
gone and continued to go straight to the rank and file. To hell and the High
Court with the bureaucracy!!
{Text of the injunction:-
1986 L. No. 443
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
B E T W E E N:
LAING HOMES LIMITED First Plaintiffs
JOHN LAING SERVICES LIMITED Second Plaintiffs
LAING MANAGEMENT CONTRACTING
LIMITED Third Plaintiffs
SOUTHERN BRICKLAYING LIMITED Fourth Plaintiffs
JOHN LAING PLC Fifth Plaintiffs
JOHN LAING CONSTRUCTION LIMITED Sixth Plaintiffs
- and -
BRIAN HIGGINS First Defendant
THOMAS WALSH Second Defendant
DAVID LAVERY Third Defendant
RAYMOND MILLS Fourth Defendant
DAVID WILLIAMS Fifth Defendant
****************** Sixth Defendant
end of text}
An example of the kind of enthusiastic support we received
was when I addressed a meeting of about 1,000 Islington DLO workers. Among them
were bin men. They told us if we were put in jail (Pentonville was
traditionally where they put 'political' prisoners in London, arising out of
industrial disputes) then they would blockade Pentonville Road with their
lorries until our release, as they had done for the 'Pentonville Dockers'. I
addressed a meeting of 4,000 print workers. Again, there was tremendous support
for our struggle against the anti-union laws. It was the same everywhere.
Needless to say this sort of support and the promise of
political strike action by many thousands of workers, if we were jailed, gave
us great inspiration and enabled us to carry on our struggle. No doubt, it gave
the government and the High Court the opposite! We went to see the UCATT
Executive Council and general secretary, A Williams at that time, and asked for
their support, just for the record. Naturally they didn't give it to us but
instead told us to give up our struggle. I told them they were a bunch of
spineless, cringing, crawling, backstabbing bastards and we were now in open
defiance of them and the High Court. George Henderson, General Secretary of the
TGWU construction section, and those other spineless bastards at Tooley Street
(TGWU construction section London Headquarters) took the same approach as the
UCATT Executive Council. Surprise, surprise.
During the dispute I received open death threats from the
employers - twice during official negotiations. It really is a nice industry to
organise in! They were told there would be no more Crouches (see earlier) and
that if any of us or our families were harmed then the main employer Laing and
its directors would be held physically and personally responsible and we would
be avenged. No equivocation!
I was also banned by a court from the Tooley Street area of
London [Laing had a massive job at Hay's Wharf there which we were picketing]
for a period of time during the 'Lock Out'. I managed to circumvent this on
occasion but was arrested once and held in jail, overnight and just happened to
miss an employer/union conciliation panel which took place the next morning!!
For two months we openly and successfully defied the High
Court and the anti-union laws, a tremendous political victory which has
immediate implications for today's struggles. However on the industrial front A
Williams, the UCATT general secretary, in secret negotiations signed a document
with the employers' national secretary which removed all official recognition
from our dispute be it at Surbiton or anywhere else. We didn't have enough
building workers involved to force a negotiated settlement outside of the
official machinery, which is what it would have taken, and after six months of
tremendously hard struggle we called off our struggle against the blacklist
with the knowledge it will have to be fought another day. Hopefully not far off
now.
However, we set London alight for six months and exposed the
gangster system of employment in the industry. We gave hope to many building
workers; we proved the anti-union laws and High Court could be successfully
defied! We exposed the full corrupt depth to which P Kavanagh, the London
regional secretary of the TGWU (Tooley Street), had sunk and forced the TGWU to
sack him. Unfortunately, he is only the tip of a very huge corrupt official
iceberg.
The Federation of Brick Contractors was formed as a result
of our struggle; meaning the brutalisation of a physical nature would lessen
but they would now, and do, court official union support and corrupt it
horribly in the process to counter any repeat of the 'Laings Lock Out' type of
action. Before and since the blacklist has kept quite a few of us off the
sites. Some have been so demoralised with this, and the state of the unions and
the left, that they have given up the struggle.
But there were enough of us left to continue the struggle
and how. Shortly after the Laings Lock Out in 1986 we were involved in
supporting workers on a McCarthy Stone site in Sutton in Surrey. I was arrested
on the picket by Special Branch, taken to the local jail and told if I didn't
leave the area and stay away I'd spend a very long time on remand in Brixton
Jail! To our knowledge this was unprecedented in an industrial dispute and
shows the threat we posed after successfully defying the High Court and the
anti union laws!
