Labour's union policies attacked by Nalgo leader: The Trades Union Congress in Blackpool is told of continuing anger over restrictions on secondary action

BRITAIN'S biggest white-collar union yesterday delivered a warning to the Labour Party over its hard-line policies on union law.

Alan Jinkinson, general secretary of the National and Local Government Officers' Association, indicated his union's strong disapproval of the party's plan for limitations on secondary action and on legislative interference in rule books.

Mr Jinkinson, potentially the leader of a 'super union' with 1.4 million members, told the Congress that Nalgo stood by its view 'that it is not the purpose of this Congress to advocate restrictions on workers' rights or on the power of unions to pursue the interests of their members to the best of their ability'.

Unlike its prospective merger partners - Nupe the public service and health union Cohse - Nalgo is not affiliated to the Labour Party.

A future Labour government would insist that only workers with a 'direct interest' in a strike would be allowed to take industrial action in sympathy. It would also ensure that laws passed by Margaret Thatcher's government on union balloting would remain in force.

A resolution passed overwhelmingly by the 900 delegates implies misgivings with Labour policies by calling for the right for unions to determine their own rules in accordance with conventions drawn up by the International Labour Organisation. The ILO, part of the United Nations, allows for no restrictions on sympathy action.

However, right-wingers pointed out that the resolution also says that there can be no return to the legal immunities enjoyed by unions before 1979. They pointed out that the motion declared that it was 'in line' with policies on employment law passed at last year's Congress.

The left believes that the wording is sufficient to demonstrate its disaffection with Labour's policies.

Bill Jordan, a Labour loyalist, concentrated his fire on the Government. He said Tories 'and other extremists' were hoping that the Congress would back- track on assurances to the public on industrial action delivered last year. He argued that the resolution did not do that.

A further employment Bill to be introduced by the Government this autumn betrayed its 'grotesque pre-occupation with the dregs of its anti-union ideas'. The proposed legislation will give workers the right to belong to the union of their choice - thus undermining the TUC's ability to stop one union poaching members from another. It will also restrict the ability of unions to use the 'check-off' procedure whereby employers deduct union subscriptions from pay packets.

Mr Jordan asked delegates: 'What kind of ideological malice so infects this Government that even as the worst recession for half a century deepens it instructs its employment minister to devote her days to preparing legislative mischief to inflict on a beleaguered industry?'

Bill Morris, leader of the Transport & General, the TUC's biggest affiliate, said that the Government was now crossing the line between union rights and human rights. 'We don't want a return to 1979. We just want a fair legal framework of positive equal rights - just like those enjoyed by other European workers.'

Proposing a motion - overwhelmingly defeated - to return to pre-1979 legal immunities, Arthur Scargill, president of the National Union of Mineworkers, said: 'It is better to stand on your feet to defy and to refuse to comply with an unjust law than to sink to your knees in humiliation.'

Congress unanimously voted for a resolution to 'refocus' the activities of the TUC. Officials were asked to concentrate their efforts on: promoting unions in general; providing services to affiliates in such areas as health and safety, education and the environment; the co-ordination of union submissions to government mainly on employment; and the maintenance of relationships with unions overseas.