http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/19/clegg-ignores-right-to-strike
“The heavily one-sided nature of the laws under which these cases are brought means it is almost impossible to hold a court-proof ballot, whatever the majority or the grievance. And judges are increasingly introducing tests of "proportionality" and ‘balance of inconvenience’ between workforce, employer and public, which have nothing to do with the original legislation. The rule of thumb is now that if a strike is likely to be effective, and an employer chooses to go to court, it will be outlawed…if they continue to be used with such abandon workers will simply resort to unofficial walkouts, as in the highly effective Lindsey oil refinery based strikes last year. And they would be right to do so. Union freedoms and protection are, for many employees, all that stands between them and the race to the bottom in pay and conditions at the heart of the BA dispute – and has seen living standards of middle and low-income workers squeezed in recent years.”
Milne’s point about unofficial action was echoed by Gregor Gall in Morning Start article yesterday: “the principal lesson here is that defiance of the law is needed to make the campaign against the injunctions and the anti-union laws go from the mediocre to the extraordinary. And the main form of defiance of the law must be going ahead with the strikes despite the injunctions”.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/90582
Gall states that ‘this does not have to be a kamikaze act that ends up with massive financial fines and sequestration of a union's assets because it is in contempt of court. What it takes to organise this kind of unofficial action is not just anger but also tight workplace organisation and strategic grass-roots leadership. These are not always present, but where employers are challenging the right to hold effective strike action it usually is.”
