Grunwick Strike, Equality Laws and Trade Union Policies - Coursework Example

THE EFFECTS OF 1976 GRUNWICK STRIKEON EQUALITY LEGISLATION, AND TRADE UNION POLICIES TOWRDS WOMEN AND BLACK AND MINORITY ETHNIC WORKERS Instructor’s name: Course: Due Date: THE GRUNWICK STRIKE ESSAY Introduction This essay is on the effects of the 1976Grunwick strike on equality legislation and trade union policies towards women, and black and minority workers. The essay begins with a description of the strike (when and how it happened, why and whom it involved in the strike), the legislative system and policies that were in place at the time, concerning women and, black ethnic, workers. It includes the issue of resistance and the problems that the workers faced, and a conclusion on the findings in the form of a discussion. The Strike The 1976 Grunwick strike was a strike involving the workers of the Grunwick company in Willesden North London, a company which deals in photographic processing and finishing. George Ward, the founder of the company founded it in 1965. In its initial years, the firm operated on postal basis, which involved the, customers mailing of films that were undeveloped along with payment to the laboratory, and received the finished photographs through the same post. In 1976, an industrial dispute occurred involving the trade union recognition at Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories which led to a strike of two years between 1976 and 1978. A previous dispute had occurred in 1973 over union recognition at Grunwick where some workers who joined a workers Union had been terminated from work. Majority of workers at Grunwick were female and of Asian origin, who got a meagre wage of £28 per week, compared to the average national wage which was £72 per week. It is evident that the working conditions at Grunwick were simply awful and more so indicative of gender and racial discrimination. Approximately 80% of the employees were of Asian origin, and, 10% were of Afro-Caribbean origin. There were claims of workers treated wretchedly by the management; treating them in an inhumane way and exploited, with working overtime with no additional pay. The dismissal of Devshi Bhudia, for working too slowly, sparked the strike in August 1976. Three other employers supported him by walking out. On the same day of dismissal of Bhudia, another employee got a dismissal in the evening, for merely putting on her coat while preparing to go back home. Her son in support of her walked out. The six then began to picket outside Grunwick. They signed up membership with the APEX, the pickets went back to Grunwick and 50 more workers walked out with demands to join the union. 25 other workers from Cobbold Road premises joined the strike. The grievances of the workers were low pay, restrictions which were petty, long working hours with overtime which was compulsory, dismissals and threats on the same, bullying by supervisors, which led to expressing their intention of bringing in a representation of trade union. Grunwick made an offer to employees who were striking asking them to give up their demands for union representation so as to reinstate them all, but this offer met a rejection from the striking workers (Dromey & Taylor, 1978). Legal Measures On 2nd September 1976, the dismissal of 137 workers on strike took place; meanwhile APEX declared the strike to be official and sought to meet with the management. The company did not agree to meet APEX. Matters then turned legal against Grunwick and the APEX secretary general, Roy Grantham, put forward a request to the Secretary of State for Employment for an establishment of a court enquiry into the dispute. The workers at this point got a voice, the problems of racial discrimination and maltreatment, and too much work for too little pay, threats and the awful working conditions could not go unnoticed anymore. Action needed to be taken to stop the trend, and a union representation would be the best organ to handle the facilitation of rectifying this fault of oppression. The union gave support to the striking workers, including boycotting the services of Grunwick, which was an enormous hit on the company. Mobilization of pickets took place and busloads of Yorkshire miners came to support the striking workers. APEX requested ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) to take up the case under the Employment Protection Act, section 11. The effects of this strike continued its ripples in the legislative and political arena, seeking action against maltreatment and discrimination against the minority workers, mostly Asian women workers and the black communities. Picketing went on, up to the shops to stop Grunwick from delivering mails for them. The pickets, during picketing, handed out leaflets which the company thought to be defamatory. Grunwick’s attempt to stop the actions of the pickets through the High court did not succeed. Mr. Justice Gibson in the High Court did not grant the injunction referring to it that it would be interference of peaceful picketing in a trade dispute. The judge did not restrain the leaflet distribution. The Scarman enquiry resulted as a way of curbing the issue, commissioned by the Labour government. The commission’s chairman, Lord Scarman looked into the weighty issue and he recommended the union recognition, and, the workers be reinstated, but the employer rejected the recommendations, backed by the Conservative Party and the right wing NAFF (National Association for Freedom). The workers’ strike committee announced the dispute end in 1978 after the Trades Union Congress (TUC), withdrew its support. This weakened the British Trade Union Movements, and the Conservative Party ring appeared to be victorious in the matter. The collective bargaining demands of the workers were sadly, never met. Effects of the strike Long-term economic-restructuring, new levels of unemployment and recession are effects which produce changes in inequality and class structure patterns in Britain. They are responsible for the need for labour movements and trade unions. Women and minority ethnic groups as in the case of the Grunwick strike have received significant effects. Such sad occurrence of strikes which ended without meeting the needs of the workers, led to the critical formation of legislative measures for equality and more so to target the issues and the problems which women and people from minority groups face in an unfair environment (Jones, 1993). Trade unions faced crisis which were the product of political ideologies and economic forces. Political ideologies manifested in legally and politically assaulted the functions and rights of the trade unions through the Conservative government in Britain. Between 1979 and 1993 nine legislative pieces, including five Employment Acts, saw the removal of all barriers to a labour market which is flexible and free, glorified in the new-right Conservative ideology. The Conservative’s comprehensive programme of employment law reform comprised the removal of administrative support and statutory support for collective bargaining, statutory rights creation for members and non-members alike against unions, employment contract partial deregulation, successively reduced the union tort immunity for industrial action, union funds tort liability and introduced procedural rules for industrial action initiation (Smith & Morton, 1993). The Government in 1993 introduced a clause into Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Bill which allows employers to give bribes to employees to give up their right to representation by trade union and consequently, cut the pay of those who do not. Conservative employment legislation has a significant principal to deny access to collective power resource by workers (Smith and Morton 1993). The changes are the causative agents of erosion of the sectors which provide the mainstay of trade union membership. The increase of sectors, which are hard to unionize, is thus, evident. Within this setup, the minority ethnic workers concentrate disproportionately in the poor work sectors and raise a set of issues regarding union policies and when it is the women who are the minority ethnic workers, the range of the issues become wider. Women have significantly increased in the labor force over the decades. The growth in employment in Europe in the last two decades sees its contribution from women, in a broader context (Brown and Scase 1991). Although the rate of union membership by women lags behind that of men, history shows that this is not a reflection of lack of will for engagement in industrial struggle. Women are currently the new recruits in these unions, although there are concerns of neglect on women issues by the union (Phizacklea and Miles 1980). After the Grunwick strike, black and white trade union activism arose, stronger and united than before. More industrial disputes also arose. These disputes gave highlights of union racism towards striking members of black, ethnic origin. Extreme right wing groups e.g. the Foundational Front grew. These groups played on the white and black workers divisions while openly supporting the white trade unionists in the disputes. The Trades Union Congress (TUC), thus started adopting policies with regards to racism, dropped opposition to Legislations of race relations and interestingly, actively campaigned against racism in the labour movement (Phizacklea and Miles 1980). Between 1970 and 1980, TUC produced materials for training and education on racism and equal opportunities, to be used in courses of trade union education. TUC in 1981 produced and distributed a publication, the “Black Workers: A TUC charter foe Equal Opportunity”, with the objective of urging the unions to be more active on the issue. In conjunction with the Commission for Racial Equality CRE, TUC participated in the production of a ‘Code of Practice’, and encouraging the unions to use the code (TUC, 1991). TUC was in the frontline in the wider European Forum, lobbying the European Trade Union Federation to take in to account and give priority the issues of the rights of immigrants and racial equality. It drew attention to the vital legislative role in curbing discrimination. Currently, in the UK, individual unions have separate committees and structures, to handle race relations and/or issues of equal opportunities. The adoption of equal policies of equal opportunities and anti-racist statement does not go unnoticed. Achievement of these objectives is through the creation of national officers who become responsible for the issues which affect members of the black community, for the purpose of encouragement of black members to participate and push further equal opportunities. The target places are workplaces, organization of conferences for black members and production of recruitment literature in languages of the ethnic minority (TUC, 1991). Conclusion The 1976-78 Grunwick industrial dispute and strike characterized the struggles of vibrant struggles of women and black, minority, ethnic workers. The strike sadly though did not achieve its objective and the union representation became somewhat weak in its operations. The impressive part of this struggle is what it led to, some years later; activism rising immensely in defence of women workers and the black workers who faced discrimination and bad treatment at work by inconsiderate and racist supervisors. The victimized parties came together and marshalled movements and trade union representations to condemn these ills in the British community. They organized themselves and participated in the events as a strategy of curbing these. The legislative measures and policies came to place, to deal with these issues. Parliamentary Acts led to the empowerment of shunning off gender bias and racist operations in the society, more so in a working environment. Political and legal ideologies, which were conservative however made an effort to suffocate the rights of the trade unions without success. The contribution of the Trade Union Congress in weeding out racism and gender inequality in the labour movement cannot be over emphasized. The trainings, campaigns, ‘Code of Practices’, policies lobbying, played a critical role in the so much needed transition. It is clear from these findings that women contribute largely in the labour force. Their membership in these unions plays a significant role in ensuring that their issues do not go unhandled. The resistance which the unions faced initially politically and legally, diminished due to persistence for their rights and the final support by most of the members in the legislature, who passed parliamentary bills supporting the functions and rights of the union membership and representations. Although the ideal set up is yet to come to the realization, it is evident that like-mindedness, unity, information and resilience for what is right can help in dealing with discriminative and undesired issues in the labour movement. The ideal environment may not be realized, but undesired issues can be handled effectively using the appropriate measures. References Dromey, J., & Taylor, G. (1978). Grunwick: the workers story. London, Lawrence and Wishart. Smith, P. and Morton, G. (1993) Union Exclusion and the Decollectivisation of Industrial Relations in Contemporary Britain British Journal of Industrial Relations 31 (1): 97-114. Brown, P. and Scase, R. (eds) (1991) Poor Work: Disadvantage and the Division of Labour Open University Press, Milton Keynes. Phizacklea, A. and Miles, R. (1980) Labour and Racism Routledge and Kegan Paul, London Jones, T. (1993) Britains Ethnic Minorities Policy Studies Institute, London. TUC (1991) Involvement of Black Workers in Trade Unions Ruskin College/Northern College, Trades Union Congress, London. Read More