Governments have a duty to legislate for the good of all people

Declining trade union membership

Geoffrey Beckman argues that anti-union laws are the primary cause.

Trade unions rights are restricted by an array of anti-union laws that limit trade union power. It is self evident that trade union power and membership numbers are connected. The greater union power the more reason people have to belong to unions and the greater the union membership the greater is union power. Cause and effect become re-enforcing.

It is my contention that these anti-union laws are the primary cause of low trade union membership and that these laws must be abolished before this decline can be reversed. If this contention is correct it follows that a primary objective of trade union activity should be legislative reform as well as shop-floor organisation.

The struggle for trade union rights is part of the struggle for political rights in general. These political rights were originally called the Rights of Man. We shall begin by looking at the political principles that underpin democratic society. Upon this basis we can begin to understand the position of trade union rights within the body politic and thereby gain an appreciation of the repressive and undemocratic nature of present industrial legislation. We shall also look at the role of compulsory arbitration within the industrial relations system. The paper ends with some general comments on the modern relevance of the doctrine of the Rights of Man.

Political Principles

Marxists assert, that the history of all hitherto mankind is the history of class struggle. There is a lot of truth in this assertion. But political history may also be viewed as a struggle for rights. Among the rights that are today taken for granted, but in fact had to be fought for and won, are universal suffrage, the right to a trial, habeas corpus¹, and protection against arbitrary search and seizure. Just as all these rights have been recognised and put into law, so should the rights of trade unions be recognised and put into law.

Modern democratic rights first came into existence as a result of the American and French revolutions. One of the key protagonists for these rights was Tom Paine. We shall for the most part use his writings as our political template.

Paine was born in Britain in 1737. He moved to America where he was prominent in the American Revolutionary Movement. He published a number of significant pamphlets advocating an American Declaration of Independence and attacking the British Government and King. He returned to Britain and published a defence of the French Revolution called 'The Rights of Man'. For this he was charged with seditious libel and convicted. He fled to France where he was a Girondin Party (moderate) delegate to the Revolutionary Convention in Paris. He opposed the execution of the French King and was consequently arrested and imprisoned for nearly a year. He went on to publish a number of other political pamphlets including a no holds barred attack on Christianity called the 'the Age of Reason'. This finished him politically.

There are three political principles upon which political rights are based. These are, Democracy, Justice and Liberty.

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