Book Review: The Right to Membership of a Trade Union
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| Author | D. W. Smith |
| DOI | 10.1177/0067205X6400100117 |
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
178
Federal
Law
Review [VOLUME I
structure
of
the tribunals operating under the Act. Although useful
in ageneral way, the reader who wants more than the barest outline
of
these matters will have to turn elsewhere.
Inevitably, it
is
difficult to review awork which annotates amajor
piece
of
legislation. The Act and the decisions made under the Act have
created what is, in effect, aCommonwealth industrial code and
if
the
author fulfils his task
of
annotation well, as
Mr
Mills has done, there
is
little room for the expression
of
his own views.
In
sum this
is
avery useful book to those interested in this field.
By
drawing together avery large number
of
decisions on the Act and the
Regulations made under the Act it sets out
the'
Commonwealth industrial
code'
and also serves as areference point for those who wish to explore
certain aspects in more depth. D.
w.
SMITH*
The Right to Membership
of
aTrade Union, by R. W. RIDEOUT, LL.B.,
PH.D.,
(The Athlone Press, University
of
London, 1963), pp. i-xliv,
1-243. Price £2
5s.
Sterling.
,Nothing can be more obvious to the historian "Professor Kahn-Freund
wrote several years ago,
'than
the sequence
of
suppression, abstention,
recognition, and attempted control in the attitude
of
the law towards the
autonomous organisations
of
the working class
'.1
Professor Kahn-Freund was commenting on the judicial reaction to
section 4
of
the English Trade Union Act 1871, which sought to remove
from the purview
of
the Courts certain classes
of
trade union 'domestic
agreements '. The first stage
of
the 'judicial cycle' noted by Kahn-
Freund was marked by the vigorous expression
of
judicial thought on the
common law legality
of
unions, epitomised by the dictum
of
Crompton J.
in Hilton
v.
Eckersley, decided in 1855, that 'combinations
...
were
illegal and indictable at common law'.2 We are now in the last stage.
Trade unions today are great aggregations
of
economic and social power.
They have virtually nothing in common with the traditional legal view
of
them as mere voluntary associations. There has been increasing
recognition that even their domestic affairs must, in the public interest,
be to some extent amenable to judicial review. Apowerful trade union,
operating in a ' closed shop ,industry can effectively deprive individuals
of
the opportunity
of
employment in that industry either by denying them
admission or terminating their membership. As Denning L.J. (as he
then was) put it in 1952, '
It
is
very different with domestic tribunals which sit in judgment
on the members
of
atrade or profession. They wield powers as
great as,
if
not greater than, any exercised by the courts
of
law. They
*B.Com., LL.B. (Melb.), Senior Lecturer in Law, School
of
General Studies,
Australian National University.
1(1944) 7Modern Law Review 192, 204.
2(1855) 6EI. &
BI.
47, 53;
119
E.R. 781, 784.
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