DAMN - We Can't Boot The strike breakers Out of the CWU

[brothermagrew]

In the on going protracted debate about can we or can't we as a trade union boot those strike breakers who cross our picket lines out of the CWU.

Been looking into this issue further and came across the following:

Under the law, any individual who wishes to join or remain a member of
a trade union has the right to do so. The union may exclude or expel that
person only for one of a number of permitted reasons. Those reasons are set
out in section 174 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation)
Act 1992 (the "1992 Act").

One of them is that the person's "conduct" is
unacceptable. However, the section sets out the three following three
categories of conduct, jointly classified as "excluded conduct", for which it is
always unlawful for a union to expel or exclude a person, even where such
conduct was a minor reason among several reasons for the union's decision
to exclude or expel:

• current or former membership of a trade union ;
• current or former employment ; or
• conduct for which disciplinary action taken against an individual would
be regarded as unjustifiable under section 65 of the 1992 Act.1

Section 174 also establishes a further category of conduct called
"protected conduct", which is essentially current or former membership of a
political party. However, Section 174 explicitly states that the activities a
person undertakes as a member of a political party do not constitute
"protected conduct". It is unlawful for a union to exclude or expel a person
wholly or mainly on the grounds of that person's "protected conduct". The net
effect of these provisions is to provide some scope for a union lawfully to expel or exclude its members on the basis of their political activities such as
standing for political office or campaigning on behalf of a political party.

1 Broadly speaking, section 65 provides protection against disciplinary action by the union for three categories of conduct: first, where the conduct relates to a failure to support industrial action; second, where the conduct relates to the making of an assertion that the union had breached its rules or statute, and the person making that assertion did so in good faith (i.e. not knowing that the assertion was false); and third, for a certain other types of conduct such as refusing to allow subscriptions to be deduced direct from pay.

SAD to say and it really galls me it looks as if Section 65 protects the strike breakers.

[Pete c]

Shoot them instead...