Listen to Prophet
It is not every day that a judge attacks a Labour government from the point of view of the workers, so Judge John Prophet's devastating assault on New Labour's latest employment bill is a special treat. In a letter to other members of the government's task force on industrial tribunals, Judge Prophet savages the proposed new law as grossly unfair to workers. "Why humiliate employees who are simply seeking to have their rights established?" he asks. The bill is expected to cut the number of tribunal cases by between 30,000 and 40,000 a year.
These cases arise directly from employment laws passed by the last Labour government in the 1970s. When the right to strike was systematically shredded by the Thatcher/Major anti-union laws of the 1980s and early 1990s, workers who were unfairly sacked, victimised or discriminated against had no alternative but to sue their employers at tribunals. As they quadrupled, the tribunal cases infuriated the employers. Unlike so many other areas of the civil law, unsuccessful litigants do not have to pay the costs of the victors, so the financial risks of legal action are relatively slight. Moreover, the tribunals' judgments proved a rich source of information about the arbitrary behaviour of employers.
The bill that has emerged is vigorously supported by the CBI, and, therefore, by the prime minister. I hope Judge Prophet's remarks upset the minister steering the bill through the Commons, Alan Johnson, former general secretary of the Union of Communication Workers, who secured his safe seat in Hull just in time for the 1997 election. But what intrigues me most is the role of the secretary of state for trade and industry, Patricia Hewitt.
This is not the first time she has infuriated trade unionists. In November her proposals to reorganise the DTI into three groups, each headed by a prominent businessman, brought howls of outrage from the normally mild TUC general secretary, John Monks. Responding furiously to Judge Prophet's attack last week, T&GWU general secretary Bill Morris described Hewitt's DTI as "the provisional wing of the CBI".
I first met Patricia Hewitt many years ago when I was elected to the executive for the National Council of Civil Liberties. I watched in some admiration as she coolly rose to general secretary. I placed her firmly on the left, and before long she became chief press officer to the leader of the Labour party, Neil Kinnock. So where and when did she get these ideas for hoisting big-business mandarins into top posts in her ministry and at the same time cutting down the rights of workers? The only answer I can think of is that between 1994 and 1996 she was head of research at Andersen Consulting, then a sister organisation to Arthur Andersen, which has just put up such a grand performance auditing the accounts of that 21st-century monument to private enterprise and business culture, Enron.
Stop selling arms to Israel. No response seems more appropriate to the occupation and pulverisation by Israeli armed forces of the West Bank and Gaza. The huge range of British arms provided to the illegal occupiers has recently, and rather grudgingly, been hinted at in parliamentary answers, and the usual response is that an arms embargo against Israel would be impracticable. Such an embargo, however, was considered very practicable by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. The European Commission, as it then was, demanded certain assurances from the marauding army of Israel, and, when the assurances were not given, a Europe-wide arms embargo was imposed on all arms to Israel. The embargo lasted for 12 years. In 1994, the Tory foreign secretary, Douglas Hurd, announced that "in the light of favourable developments" in the region, the embargo was to be lifted. The most favourable development was the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Jericho and Gaza, the very areas that are now being systematically bombarded, bombed and bulldozed with the help of British arms and equipment. The quickest way to any favourable development nowadays would be an even more ruthless arms embargo than the one Thatcher conceded in 1982.
Last week's Any Questions? with veteran Ulster unionist Ken Maginnis had an intriguing solution to juvenile delinquency. In the good old days, he said, when he was a boy, a local policeman would respond to his wrongdoing by giving him "a clip on the ear". The copper would then grass to Maginnis's mother, so the boy got yet another "clip on the ear". The solution to the problems of Northern Ireland under unionist rule suddenly became blindingly obvious. If only more boys had been given clips on the ear, how many of the Troubles could have been avoided?
comment@guardian.co.uk
These cases arise directly from employment laws passed by the last Labour government in the 1970s. When the right to strike was systematically shredded by the Thatcher/Major anti-union laws of the 1980s and early 1990s, workers who were unfairly sacked, victimised or discriminated against had no alternative but to sue their employers at tribunals. As they quadrupled, the tribunal cases infuriated the employers. Unlike so many other areas of the civil law, unsuccessful litigants do not have to pay the costs of the victors, so the financial risks of legal action are relatively slight. Moreover, the tribunals' judgments proved a rich source of information about the arbitrary behaviour of employers.
The bill that has emerged is vigorously supported by the CBI, and, therefore, by the prime minister. I hope Judge Prophet's remarks upset the minister steering the bill through the Commons, Alan Johnson, former general secretary of the Union of Communication Workers, who secured his safe seat in Hull just in time for the 1997 election. But what intrigues me most is the role of the secretary of state for trade and industry, Patricia Hewitt.
This is not the first time she has infuriated trade unionists. In November her proposals to reorganise the DTI into three groups, each headed by a prominent businessman, brought howls of outrage from the normally mild TUC general secretary, John Monks. Responding furiously to Judge Prophet's attack last week, T&GWU general secretary Bill Morris described Hewitt's DTI as "the provisional wing of the CBI".
I first met Patricia Hewitt many years ago when I was elected to the executive for the National Council of Civil Liberties. I watched in some admiration as she coolly rose to general secretary. I placed her firmly on the left, and before long she became chief press officer to the leader of the Labour party, Neil Kinnock. So where and when did she get these ideas for hoisting big-business mandarins into top posts in her ministry and at the same time cutting down the rights of workers? The only answer I can think of is that between 1994 and 1996 she was head of research at Andersen Consulting, then a sister organisation to Arthur Andersen, which has just put up such a grand performance auditing the accounts of that 21st-century monument to private enterprise and business culture, Enron.
Stop selling arms to Israel. No response seems more appropriate to the occupation and pulverisation by Israeli armed forces of the West Bank and Gaza. The huge range of British arms provided to the illegal occupiers has recently, and rather grudgingly, been hinted at in parliamentary answers, and the usual response is that an arms embargo against Israel would be impracticable. Such an embargo, however, was considered very practicable by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. The European Commission, as it then was, demanded certain assurances from the marauding army of Israel, and, when the assurances were not given, a Europe-wide arms embargo was imposed on all arms to Israel. The embargo lasted for 12 years. In 1994, the Tory foreign secretary, Douglas Hurd, announced that "in the light of favourable developments" in the region, the embargo was to be lifted. The most favourable development was the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Jericho and Gaza, the very areas that are now being systematically bombarded, bombed and bulldozed with the help of British arms and equipment. The quickest way to any favourable development nowadays would be an even more ruthless arms embargo than the one Thatcher conceded in 1982.
Last week's Any Questions? with veteran Ulster unionist Ken Maginnis had an intriguing solution to juvenile delinquency. In the good old days, he said, when he was a boy, a local policeman would respond to his wrongdoing by giving him "a clip on the ear". The copper would then grass to Maginnis's mother, so the boy got yet another "clip on the ear". The solution to the problems of Northern Ireland under unionist rule suddenly became blindingly obvious. If only more boys had been given clips on the ear, how many of the Troubles could have been avoided?
comment@guardian.co.uk
Use the feedback form below to submit your comments.
Use the form below to email this article to your friends.
