HC Deb 22 December 1954 vol 535 cc2809-19

2.34 p.m.

Mr. Niall Macpherson (Dumfries)

The question I wish to raise this afternoon also concerns flying and, in a sense, noise. However, the noise is not the noise of aircraft and has nothing to do with the R.A.F. Nor has it to do with British European Airways and the recent trouble that has arisen over the holding of mass meetings in Corporation time. It has to do with the principle of the closed shop and the methods that are being pursued to achieve it. This, I submit, is not just a matter for the unions concerned, but it is a matter of concern to the House, because it affects the liberties of the subject and is therefore a matter for which the House cannot divest itself of responsibility.

I shall not speak of theory, I shall speak of a severely practical instance of how the closed shop works. I shall give the House a concrete example, and I shall seek redress. The example I shall give seems to me to be all the more intolerable because it concerns the practice of the closed shop in a nationalised industry over which this House has more direct control, through the Minister whom it controls, than any other form of industry.

The union concerned is the Aeronautical Engineers Association, and I must go back into history to make the case clear. This union was started during the war to meet the needs of civilian aircraft maintenance staff, both in civil aircraft and in the R.A.F. The aircraft maintenance staff are those who have a duty to ensure and certify the airworthiness of operational aircraft. I need not stress to the House the importance of this work.

It would seem natural that in a new and expanding industry there should be a new union to meet its needs the more so, since the principal union in the engineering field, the A.E.U., had not admitted into its ranks before the war anyone employed in the civilian aircraft maintenance industry. So, before the war, there was no union which could be treated as the special union of the aircraft maintenance men. It has been said that the Ae.E.A. was a breakaway union. This is demonstrably untrue, though I cannot now go into the proof of that. It was formed roughly by four elements ex-R.A.F. men, men who had no union, men who undertook training in the aircraft maintenance work in anticipation of war, and men who subsequently were called for training once the war had started.

During the war, the big unions started to take an interest in the civilian aircraft maintenance industry. The maintenance men themselves then had the choice either of joining a big union, with all its advantages of experience and superior financial position, or of joining a small union of their own in which they could be represented by individuals whom they knew and had themselves elected, which would maintain close contact and esprit de corps and would represent that industry alone. Many of them joined the latter union.

The tussle between the unions really started in 1946 as a result of the opposition of the big unions to the A.E.A. The difficulties with which the A.E.A. has been faced really arose out of action taken by this House. They arose out of the Civil Aviation Act, 1946, because, during the passage of the Bill, the Labour Government introduced an Amendment to its own Measure. That Amendment changed the Bill so that it was no longer necessary, as it would have been under the original wording, for the Corporations to recognise the Ae.E.A., and left it purely within the discretion of the Corporation whether to recognise the union or not. It is still possible for the Corporations to recognise the Ae.E.A. for the purpose of negotiations. The point that I wish very strongly to make is that it was political action which was at the root of the trouble, and I maintain that it is only by political action that the situation can be altered.

It was from that time, in 1946, that the poaching of Ae.E.A. members started. Full advantage was taken of the wind-up of the British South American Airways Corporation, but it was not until after 1948 that any real progress was made in breaking down the Ae.E.A. membership. The reason the breakdown started was that the Corporations entered into an agreement with the union concerned that, where in any hangar or shop virtually all the employees were members of the unions forming part of the National Joint Council, the Corporations should treat it as what was known as a 100 per cent. shop or a full union shop and not post either members of the Aeronautical Engineers Association or non-union men to it.

That principle was stretched to unimaginable lengths. Many new hangars and shops have been set up at London Airport in recent years. The tendency was—I do not say that it happened in every case—to start off by posting a small number of N.J.C. union members to the hangar and then declaring it a 100 per cent. shop. I give the example of the big new hangar which is now being established. I understand that about 7,000 will be employed there. Some 70 or 80 men were posted there—it is a complete central repair and maintenance unit—and on the basis of that, because they are all members of N.J.C. unions, the whole hangar is a closed shop.

It may be said that there is nothing to prevent members of the Aeronautical Engineers Association being given work in such closed shops. That is true, but on one condition, that they cease to be members of the Aeronautical Engineers Association and join one of the N.J.C. unions. It has been said that there has really been no evidence of victimisation or intimidation. It is very difficult to get such evidence. When a man is interviewed, he and the person interviewing him are normally alone. I have been told—I can, of course, only give this from one side—of instances where those who are interviewed have been told in terms that if they repeat outside what has been said at that interview it will be denied. There is also the matter of promotion. I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would ascertain how many members of the Aeronautical Engineers Association have been promoted during the last five years and have remained members of the Ae.E.A. The fact is that they are denied promotion unless they change their union.

There is also the question of presenting grievances. It is said that there is nothing to prevent an individual presenting his grievance to the management. That is true, but only provided that his grievance has nothing to do with terms and conditions of work, which are negotiated by the National Joint Council. What happens? In the case, for instance, of bonus payments by British European Airways, if a man has an individual case which is a matter of conditions of work and pay he has to go through the National Joint Council union. But the N.J.C. union representatives decline to take up the case unless the man joins one of their unions.

Hon. Members may wonder why they have not seen more about this in the Press. There is a very good reason. Industrial correspondents are dependent to a very large extent upon the favour of the big unions for their livelihood. If they took up the case of the Aeronautical Engineers Association they would lose that favour.

Can these men go to the Minister? They tried to go to the Minister, but the Minister told them that because they have not gone through the normal channels he could not see them. They cannot go through the normal channels; they know by experience that it is not worth trying. Time and time again they have been frustrated in trying to go through the normal channels.

The result of all this is that at the present time there are only two maintenance and repair sections in the British Overseas Airways Corporation in which there are Ae.E.A. members. Ae.E.A. members have gradually been squeezed and squeezed in this way. The story with which I shall conclude indicates how it is done.

I want to give the facts regarding the sequence of events in regard to a report Which appeared in "The Times" the other day to the effect that agreement had been reached between the unions and the Corporation about the shop in which the six Constellations which are being purchased from Capital Airlines are to be serviced and maintained. There were, broadly speaking, at any rate up to last September, two maintenance and repair sections in which Ae.E.A. members served. In one section Comets, Yorks and Hermes were serviced, and in the other Stratocruisers and Constellations. I might say in passing that in the Stratocruiser-Constellation fleet hangars the conditions of work are the worst in the whole of London Airport. It so happens that it is impossible to get the Stratocruisers into the sheds, and, therefore, it is necessary to work with the doors open, and in those sheds there are none of the amenities which exist in the more modern hangars.

When this first arose in September there was what is known as a panel meeting between the management and the shop stewards affecting No. 8 hangar, and it was announced that the Constellations were to be serviced there. There followed a mass meeting organised by a Mr. Maitland, who, I understand, is a shop steward in that hangar. He is a member of the E.T.U. He is a Communist, and I understand that he is the man who ran the Lyons strike and that he is chairman of the Communist group at London Airport.

Mr. Maitland wanted to make the hangar a 100 per cent. shop. He did not in the first place get the support that he wanted. He arranged a second meeting, but still did not get the support and had to cancel it. In the meantime a petition was sent to the Corporation signed by 103 members from the shop asking that the persecution of the A.E.A. should stop and that they should be recognised for the purposes of negotiation.

That was about the middle of November. Almost every union was represented among those 103 signatures. After that there was a private meeting of shop stewards called by Mr. Maitland to reverse the decision. I understand that he threatened to have the signatories branched for having signed that petition.

Following that there was another panel meeting which I am told lasted one and a half days, from 7th to 8th December. The minutes are not yet published, so I can speak only of the results. There followed a mass meeting in what is now known as the "Kremlin Hangar," that is No. 8 Hangar.

Mr. Maitland then announced that the Corporation had agreed to move five of the leading Aeronautical Engineering Association men to the Stratocruiser hangar and to deal with the remainder one at a time if they refused to join the National Joint Council Union. The five included a member of the Aeronautical Engineers Association's branch committee, who had a short time before been promised promotion if he would leave the Association.

A day or two later another Ae.E.A. man was posted away to encourage the others. Now another five men have been posted with effect from 20th December. This morning one man from the new hangar was interviewed by the base foreman who is a management official and was given 15 minutes in which to make up his mind to leave his present union or to be posted to another hangar, possibly on other work—not work on aircraft. This man has been employed by B.O.A.C. and formerly by British Airways since 1936.

Originally there were 35 Ae.E.A. members in that hangar, roughly half the maintenance staff there. What has happened to the remainder of those men? There were also some non-union men, and I do not know what has happened to them. If they have joined a National Joint Council Union, does my hon. Friend think that that is intimidation, or how would he describe it? They had to join it or be transferred to another hangar in which they would have had no hope of promotion so long as they belonged to the Ae.E.A.

If my hon. Friend doubts the existence of intimidation, will he make inquiries, as I have already asked, among Ae.E.A. members to find how many have been promoted in the last five years and are still members of the Ae.E.A.? I realise that my hon. Friend may not be able to answer all the points, because he will not have detailed information. I also realise that he may have contradictory information on some of those points. My information comes from one side, his from another.

The British Overseas Airways Corporation are not impartial in this matter, as the particular case I have mentioned shows. If the information that I have given to the House conflicts with the information in the possession of the Minister, I ask him not to assume that the information in his possession is necessarily correct. I believe in the truth of the information in my possession, and I believe that it is his duty to ensure that this long-standing wrong is righted and Ae.E.A. is given official recognition.

Let me finish with a quotation: Freedom of association implies not only that an employee shall be free to join whatever association he wishes but that also that the association which he and his fellows join will be recognised by his employer for purposes of collective bargaining. Any pronouncement by an employer that employees are free to join a trade union if they wish is an impertinent presumption in a free country unless an employer willingly accepts the obligation of recognising the association which his workers join. That is paragraph 39 of the evidence submitted by the T.U.C. to the Beveridge Committee on the B.B.C.

2.54 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. John Profumo)

In the short time at my disposal, I should like to answer some of the very challenging problems my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. N. Macpherson) has put before the House. All who know my hon. Friend will agree that his contributions to our debates are always marked for their sincerity and forthrightness, and therefore we invariably listen to him with the greatest interest and sympathy. I am sure that he will acquit me of discourtesy if I make it plain at the outset that I cannot accept—in fact, must strongly refute—his accusation of the individual victimisation of employees within the Airways Corporations.

At the same time, I am grateful to him for the opportunity of putting the facts in their true perspective and making clear the Government's position in all this. That members of the A.E.A. feel that they have a grievance is without doubt, but that the status of their union is a matter which should, or can, call for action by Her Majesty's Government is a fundamental misconception.

In so far as conditions of employment are concerned, that must be a matter for settlement between employees and management, and it would be wholly inappropriate and contrary to long and well established custom generally agreed throughout industry for the Government to seek to interfere in such matters. I will not go back over the whole history of the A.E.A. This is a long and complicated story. I will come at once to the three main themes which ran through my hon. Friend's speech.

First of all, on the question of recognition, the legal position of the Corporations is governed by Section 20 of the Air Corporations Act, 1949, the effect of which is to impose on them the direct and sole responsibility to decide with which organisations they consider it appropriate to seek consultation in order to establish the necessary machinery for the purposes of negotiation and consultation. The Corporations carried out this statutory obligation in 1946 when the National Joint Council for Civil Air Transport was established. The constitution of this body does not allow the Corporations to dictate the composition of the trade union side of the Council. No one could expect them for one moment voluntarily to endanger the existing machinery—which has been built up in the N.J.C.—by recognising the A.E.A. Any such recognition by the Corporations must depend on the Association being elected to the trade union side of the N.J.C. by the unions which comprise that side.

Since the Corporations have fulfilled their statutory duty, there is no ground on which my right hon. Friend can intervene. The Government cannot take sides in disputes concerning trade union recognition, or representation on negotiating machinery, which must be settled within the industry itself.

The fact that an industry is nationalised makes no difference. Although these are publicly owned, the actual employer in each case is not the Government, but the board or corporation entrusted by Parliament with the management of the industry concerned. In accordance with established traditions of industrial self-government, these boards and corporations are therefore left to manage their own labour relations without Government direction or control.

Now let me deal with the question of what my hon. Friend refers to as "the closed shop." There is a fundamental difference between the closed shop and a 100 per cent. organisation. An agreement was made in 1948 between the Corporations and the unions through the N.J.C. It was this to which my hon. Friend referred. By this agreement, when any T.U.C.-affiliated union, or group of affiliated unions, achieves 100 per cent. membership in defined and allocated categories of staff working in well recognised organisational units the employees' side of the N.J.C. so notifies the employers' side, who "take note" of the situation.

Under that agreement in such circumstances the Corporation undertakes to refrain from taking provocative action, but this is without prejudice to their right to put anyone into such organisational units or shops if the nature of the work demands it. This arrangement has been applied to shops where the great majority of employees belong to affiliated unions but which contain a pocket of nonaffiliated men. In such instances "no provocative action" is interpreted by leaving the existing personnel where they are but refraining from putting in additional non-affiliates unless the work demands it. I understand that this situation prevails in B.O.A.C. today and that there is no closed shop as such.

My hon. Friend referred to the A.E.U. Both the A.E.U. and the E.T.U. are large and well established unions which are recognised in many industries and services throughout the country as the appropriate bodies to represent the workers in the crafts they cover. This is the case in the Airways Corporations.

It would be quite wrong to imagine that either Corporation is permitting any sinister activities in its midst. They simply adhere to the established prin- ciple that a man's job, except in exceptional circumstances, shall not be endangered because of his political beliefs.

Now I come to the specific case arising from the modification of certain Constellation aircraft. It appears to be necessary to carry out this work outside the new hanger because a special team of men is needed and there is no room inside. When this was known, a protest was made to the management on the ground that this would mean that some recognised union men would have to work alongside non-affiliated employees. A resolution was passed declaring "black" any work on these Constellations done in any shop which was not 100 per cent. organised. The management rejected this demand as not being in accordance with the N.J.C. agreement and the resolution was withdrawn. It is true that some 10 members of the Ae.E.A. have been transferred from this particular work, but they have been given the same basic conditions elsewhere within the organisation. It should also be noted that some affiliated employees have been moved on to the job from elsewhere. The management must have the right to place its labour where it regards it best employed.

Normally, neither the Corporations nor I have any means of knowing to what union, if any, individual employees belong, but in this case I happen to have it on the authority of the General Secretary of the Ae.E.A. himself that, even after the transfer of these 10 men, approximately 25 have been left on the job. One cannot possibly therefore argue that this is a closed shop or that the management have victimised any individual employees. It goes without saying, of course, that neither the Government nor the Corporation can in any way be responsible for internal stresses or pressure which may exist as between the individual members of one trade union and another.

The only way in which the Government can be remotely concerned with this general problem is because of its general desire to see that nobody loses his job because of his trade union membership or, indeed, lack of it.

This brings me to the question of alleged individual victimisation. As my hon. Friend is aware, both Sir Miles Thomas and Lord Douglas have given my right hon. Friend assurances that they will not countenance victimisation of individual A.E.A. members and have undertaken to investigate personally any allegations that are brought to their notice. So far, in spite of what my hon. Friend says, they have not found any foundation in any such charges.

In conclusion, let me reiterate, in what I am afraid has been a rather rushed reply to my hon. Friend due to the late hour, the main points arising out of this issue. First, neither the Government nor the Corporation have any locus regarding the inclusion of the A.E.A. or any other union on the National Joint Council. Secondly, there is no closed shop as such in either of the Airways Corporations. Thirdly, it is no responsibility of the Government or of management if there is pressure by one union for members of another union to join their ranks.

Finally, the Chairmen of the Corporations have given an undertaking that they will not countenance victimisation of individual members of the A.E.A., and I am confident they will continue to examine carefully any such allegations which may arise in the future but which, I hope with all my heart, will diminish as a result of this afternoon's debate.