Notes Of Cases
| Published date | 01 September 1957 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1957.tb02715.x |
| Date | 01 September 1957 |
NOTES
OF
CASES
‘‘
TRADE DISPUTE
yy
AND
PERSONAL
DISPUTES
IN
A
UNION
Huntley
v.
Thornton’
is a case of particular legal interest, for
implicit in the judgment of Harman
J.
is an important amendment
of one of the most influential but least litigated statutory defini-
tions in English law, the meaning of a “trade dispute
”
in
the
Trade Disputes Act,
1906.
The facts of the case are lengthy, but an
accurate understanding of the nature of the decision requires their
full recital.
On
refusal by the employers of a wage increase, the Federation
of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions recommended all its con-
stituent unions, including the Amalgamated Engineering
Union,
to
call
a
twenty-four hours’ strike2
on
December
2,
1953.
The
Executive Council of the A.E.U. resolved to this effect, and, con-
sequently,
on
December
1, 1953,
A.E.U. members in the shipyard of
William Gray
&
Son
at Hartlepool received printed leaflets instruct-
ing them to stop work
for
the period of the following day. Huntley,
a
fitter and turner at Gray’s Yard, refused to obey because,
apparently, he had consulted the union rulebook during the lunch
hour and concluded that
it
contained
no
clear power to call such
a
strike
3;
and he unsuccessfully tried to persuade a fellow-member
to join him.
On
December
2,
Huntley came to work as usual. This
naturally made his fellow unionists extremely angry; and when the
employer turned down their request to dismiss him, they sent him
to
“
Coventry.”
Huntley appears to have stated his views in the regional Press.
At his branch meeting, however, he was denied the opportunity of
ventilating his position, but, after he had left, the branch resolved
and wrote to the Hartlepool District Committee that Huntley be
expelled. At the subsequent District Committee meeting there was
a heated exchange between Huntley and the committee members
ending in Huntley’s exit in high dudgeon, after describing the com-
mittee comprehensively as
a
“
shower.” The committee then
resolved to recommend to the Executive Council that Huntley be
expelled for (a) refusing to carry out the Executive Council’s
instructions; (b) his
“
arrogant attitude
yy
at the meeting; and (c)
C19571
1
W.L.R.
321;
also
reported in
[1957]
1
All
E.R.
234.
On
this
Harman
J.
said:
“
if labour
is
to be withdrawn without such notice
as is required by the various contracts
of
the strikers with their employers it
is
an
illegal strike
and
none
the
less
illeual because the several unions who
approve it
are
protected from action by seEtion
4
of
the Trade Disputes Act
”
(at p.
325).
3
Harman
J.
was inclined to
agree
with him (at p.
325),
but the case did
not
require any
firm
conclusion
on
the point.
495
496
THE
MODERN
LAW REVIEW
VOL.
20
u
his attempt to coerce other brothers at his place of employment.”
*
The Executive Council wisely refused, in what Harman
J.
des-
cribed as a “sensible and moderate answer.”
On
two further
occasions within the next week
or
so
the District Committee recom-
mended expulsion to the Executive Council, but was refused each
time.
Meanwhile, under the strain of his ostracism, Huntley finally
left Gray’s Yard and went to work in Bradford, eighty miles from
his home and at less pay. After two weeks there,
on
January
18,
1954,
he decided that he had to secure employment in the Hartle-
pool area. He was interviewed by the Press and communicated his
intention to
it.
The District Committee,
on
learning
of
his intention, circularised
all shop-stewards in the Hartlepool district asking them to
cc
ensure
that Huntley
is
not allowed to start work under any considera-
tion.yy5 The Committee also wrote to Thornton, secretary of the
neighbouring Tees-side district, asking him to assist in the boycott.
This letter was in prejudiced terms, which Thornton accepted at
their face value.
In
particular,
it
refrained from saying that
Huntley was still a union member and that
his
expulsion was
on
three occasions unreservedly refused by the Executive Council.
Owing to the antagonistic attitude of the shop stewards and
workers thus engendered in the Hartlepool district, Huntley’s appli-
cations for work there failed. At the beginning of February,
1954,
however, he secured employment at the B.E.A.’s power station
in Stockton, nine miles from Hartlepool and in the Tees-side district
of the A.E.U.
In
less than two weeks he was dismissed from this
work too owing to the intervention of Thornton and Langford
(A.E.U. convenor of shop stewards at the power station), who, in
support of what they thought
to
be a bona fide trade dispute
between Huntley and
his
District Committee, requested his dis-
missal under threat
of
a withdrawal of union labour.
Huntley now tried to make his peace with the Hartlepool District
Committee, and also tried to obtain a
1954
contribution card to clear
off
the arrears of his subscriptions which he had not paid since the
original, fateful interview with the committee. The further inter-
view he now sought was refused. The
4s.
he sent his branch
secretary in respect of his arrears were returned, and his repeated
requests to the branch secretary for a current contribution card
were ignored.6
On
June
8,
1954,
while the figure of
€3
3s.
6d. for
arrears was apparently still in dispute between the branch secretary
and Huntley’s solicitor, Huntley was expelled for having
4
At
p.
330.
5
At p.
332.
6
This
was
B
breach
of
the branch secretary’s duty
under
the rules
of
the
A.E.U.’s
rulebook.
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