Mass walk-out brings universities to a halt

Around 100,000 employees staged a 24-hour pay strike which almost brought British universities to a standstill yesterday as tough new proposals to curb industrial action were published by the Government.

Yesterday's action involved more workers - from professors to porters - than any other stoppage since the miners' strike. Despite the weather, union members staged rallies, marches and demonstrations at universities as far apart as Swansea and Aberdeen. The eight unions involved said that few members crossed picket lines.

The protest, at wage offers of 2.5 per cent for manual workers and 1.5 per cent for the rest, is expected to continue with disruptive action stopping short of yesterday's strike.

Under the Green Paper, most of the university employees who walked out would have been involved in unlawful action. The document says that stoppages should only be legitimate if more than half of eligible union members vote for strikes - rather than a majority of those who return voting forms. Only 38 per cent of members of Unison, the public services union, voted in the strike ballot.

It is also doubtful whether a stoppage at Scotrail on 9 December, announced yesterday by train drivers' union Aslef, would be lawful under the Green Paper. The union would possibly have to ensure that some services ran where there was no alternative transport.

Introducing the Green Paper yesterday, Ian Lang, President of the Board of Trade, said it was not his responsibility to draw a line between what would infringe the proposed law and what would not. That would be decided by the courts.

In broad terms, any industrial action which risked life, health and safety or posed a threat to national security would be included. Strikes which damaged property or the economy would also be unlawful.

A potential catch-all phrase, however, is that any action which caused "significant disruption of everyday life or activities in the whole or part of the country" would be considered illegal.

Mr Lang said ministers would allow three months for consultation over the Green Paper and acknowledged that any legislation might well depend on a Conservative victory at the general election.

Other proposals in the Green Paper mean that unions would have to give 14 days notice of action rather than the present seven days; that they would have to hold fresh ballots every two or three months during industrial action, or after an unspecified number of short- duration stoppages.

Mr Lang said his proposals were "reasoned, considered" and relevant to the spate of public service strikes during the summer. Courts would soon decide where the boundaries lay. "It is the kind of decision they reach regularly in civil areas,"he said.

Asked about employers' scepticism towards the plans, he said that companies had expressed doubts about previous employment legislation, but had subsequently embraced them.

The Engineering Employers' Federation and the Institute of Directors declared that existing laws had already struck the right balance between both sides of industry and companies were not clamouring for more.

The organisations warned that the wording of the Green Paper was confused and vague. The CBI added that its members doubted if the plans were workable. Under the proposals, aggrieved employers - together with other businesses and members of the public affected by industrial action - could seek injunctions and if necessary sue unions for ordering strikes which had a "disproportionate or excessive" impact.

John Monks, general secretary of the TUC, said Mr Lang was "electioneering". "If these proposals were ever implemented, there would be a fundamental shift in power to bad employers and industrial disputes would be harder to resolve," he argued.

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