40 years since the last serious defiance of the anti-union laws.

 

 

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!