Kill the Bill. That was the slogan that kicked off the mass resistance to Ted Heath’s Industrial Relations Act in 1971.

It produced the biggest trade union demonstration up to then with over 100,000 marching through London and laid the foundation for a sustained and ultimately successful campaign against the Act which included mass defiance, the imprisonment of trade unionists — the Pentonville 5 — and strikes across a whole range of industries as more and more workers took action against the draconian measures aimed at preventing the movement from effectively representing its members.

The campaign was launched and developed by the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions (LCDTU) and reached such proportions that even the right-wing TUC leaders of the time threatened a general strike.

The weakness of the Industrial Relations Act was that it attempted to “do it all at once,” a blunderbuss approach if you like, and as a result engendered opposition “all at once,” which overwhelmed the Act and even prior to its repeal by the incoming Labour government in 1974 had rendered it useless.

The effect of the campaign waged by the LCDTU even had the head of the CBI, Campbell Adamson, calling for its repeal.
In the 1980s the Margaret Thatcher government took a far more sophisticated approach to shackling the trade union movement.

A series of acts dealt with issues one at a time therefore dissipating opposition. This coupled with mass unemployment and a downturn in trade union militancy and the wholesale destruction of the manufacturing base of the British economy contributed to the success of the most anti-union legislation that exists in the whole of Europe.

To their eternal shame the 1997-2010 Labour government did nothing to repeal these laws — Tony Blair even boasting about the fact that Britain had the most restrictive laws on trade union freedom as one of the reasons why there should be investment in the British economy.

The latest round of anti-union legislation was revealed last week when Business and Innovation Secretary Sajid Javid published his Trade Union Bill. The provisions of this will make any effective industrial action nigh on impossible with ballot rules that there must be at least 50 per cent turnout in any ballot and 40 per cent of all eligible voters’ approval of industrial action is required in what are deemed to be essential services, which according to the Bill include workers in transport, health, education, the decommissioning of nuclear power stations and Border Force.

There can be no doubt that once the legislation is passed then the courts will interpret these, especially in transport, as widely as they can.

But it does not stop there. There are provisions in the Bill to disrupt the political funds of the trade union movement by forcing members to opt in rather than opt out and ballots of union members every five years to renew the outcome.

There are clauses which will criminalise picketing by workers even if a strike has been called legally under the balloting rules, which include informing the police in advance of all the details of what the picket will do and having a nominated person, wearing an armband and having letters of “appointment” from their union, which any policeman can demand to see.

Pickets themselves will as now be restricted to six but what is new is that any more than that will now constitute a criminal act, as presumably will be the failure to wear an armband or to produce a letter of “appointment.”

How long will it be before we see again to hideous spectacle of workers ending up in prison for taking industrial action?

Where the Bill becomes really bizarre and sinister are the provisions that attack the trade unions’ use of social media. We will now be required to inform the government and the police in advance of what will be put on Facebook, Twitter and any other online media by members involved in taking industrial action. It’s not clear what happens when people not directly involved comment — supportively of course — on a strike, overtime ban, work to rule or other action but you can be sure that the courts will clear this one up in short order.

As with the 1971 Industrial Relations Act this blunderbuss approach could be the undoing of the legislation.

Its potential effects will reach wide sections of the community in ways that have not previously been seen. It is true that we no longer have large numbers of workers, well organised in strategic industries in both the private and public sector and the background to the successful campaign waged by the LCDTU had its roots in the growing industrial militancy of the 1960s.

Nevertheless, over recent years there has been a growing level of industrial action by rail workers, teachers, civil servants and lorry drivers that does not look like dissipating soon.

There has been industrial action in the most unlikely of places — National Gallery staff over the outsourcing of their jobs and cleaners at Sotheby’s Auction House.

There is a good chance that the blunderbuss can be made to explode in Sajid Javid’s face.

The forces exist to create an LCDTU for the 21st century, with much support around both the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom and the Institute for Employment Rights doing good work on what is really needed.

With trades unions uniting their members with large sections of society in the name of civil liberties and an end to police snooping, blacklisting and harassment, mass opposition around a preparedness to take on this rotten Bill — with all the power we have — will see it dumped into the dustbin of history alongside its failed ancestor the hated 1971 Industrial Relations Act.

• Laurence Platt is Midlands district trade union organiser of the Communist Party. The CP is holding a national aggregate meeting of all its active trades unionists on Sunday September 20 in London to specifically discuss the campaign to Kill the Bill — the opening statement will be by trade union organiser Graham Stevenson.