ONE of the two contenders for the Tory leadership has threatened to further restrict the activities of trade unions, an enduring obsession of the Thatcherite right.  

The detail is inevitably lacking, but Liz Truss wants “minimum service levels” where public-sector workers have balloted for a legal strike. The implications of this are deeply concerning — even if probably not fully thought through by Truss’s team.  

RMT leader Mick Lynch, writing in the Daily Mirror, argued that Truss wants to go back to 1871, the date of the Act that legalised trade unions. TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady has warned of a fundamental attack on the right to organise and an assault on democracy as understood across Europe.  

Truss may think again but not without significant campaigning pressure to defend existing trade union rights.  

It’s worth looking at what the changes were to trade union law in the years after the formation of the TUC in 1868 to understand a little of the detail of what Truss’s plans might mean.  

In the mid-1860s there were a series of small-scale inter-union disputes in Sheffield that got media attention. A royal commission was set up in 1867 to look at the issue of unions. One craft union leader Robert Applegarth was a member.  

The majority of the commission saw no reason to change matters — that is, unions had no legal status. There were some in the labour movement who backed that. They preferred that the government and the law kept entirely out of union affairs. In the 1870s, with a relatively small state, this was a possibility.  

However, it was the minority of the commission that won the day when the matter was debated in the Commons. The result was the 1871 Trade Union Act.  

For the first time, trade unions were recognised as existing in law. That meant that union funds now had legal protection against anyone seeking to make off with them — a not unknown issue.  

Other provisions had wider importance. Union activity including strikes could not be regarded as “restraint of trade,” meaning neither employer or scabs could pursue unions for damages.  

Further union organisation could not be regarded as a conspiracy, a point going back to the Tolpuddle Martyrs 35 years before.  

The 1871 Act was a key part of putting unions and union members on a legal footing — but there was more to do.  

The 1875 Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act addressed a further key issue, in particular it made picketing in disputes legal. The Employers and Workmen Act also of 1875 made all disputes between employers and employees civil matters.  

This was a major step forward for ordinary workers. Previously, under the Master and Servant Act, workers who left employment before the end of their contract could be pursued by the boss and fined or jailed — and thousands were, even in the 1860s when the law was relaxed.

Truss’s proposals potentially look to transgress the principles of both the 1871 and 1875 Acts. If a worker who had voted to strike was told to work under a “minimum service” law one wonders if the union would be found guilty if they refused.  

And if they did refuse, the demand of their employer to work despite having legally voted not to, would they then end up in a 2020s version of the Master and Servant Act, fined or jailed because they refused to do what the boss said?

Concerning times indeed — and as Lynch and others have said — warranting the most robust of responses.

Keith Flett is a socialist historian.