THE PAYMENT OF SUPPLEMENTARY BENEFIT FOR STRIKERS' DEPENDANTS—MISCONCEPTION AND MISREPRESENTATION
| Published date | 01 January 1975 |
| Author | Roger Lasko |
| Date | 01 January 1975 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1975.tb01399.x |
THE PAYMENT
OF
SUPPLEMENTARY
MISCONCEPTION AND MISREPRESENTATION
BENEFIT
FOR
STRIKERS’
DEPENDAWS-
THE
recently published pamphlet
“
Financing Strikes,” written by
a sub-committee of the Society
of
Conservative Lawyers,’
is
remark-
able only for encapsulating
so
perfectly within one document the
misconceptions and mis-representations that have been prevalent
in recent years amongst some politicians and their legal advisors
about the payment of supplementary benefit during strikes. It is
for this reason only that
it
is worth examining the document in some
detail.
The authors take the Ministry of Social Security Act
1966
as the
starting point of the present system whereby strikers can claim
supplementary benefit for their dependants-“ The present system
was inaugurated during the period of the Labour Government of
the Sixties.’’ They detail the various sections of this Act as they
affect strikers and their dependants and then reproduce figures for
selected years showing a rising trend in the payment of supple-
mentary benefit to strikers. Their figures imply a dramatic increase
following the introduction of the
1966
Act. The relatively slow
growth in the size of union funds and expenditure is compared
unfavourably with the steeply rising expenditure from public funds.
The authors go on to state the obvious fact that strikers inevitably
share in the Supplementary Benefit that is nominally intended for
their dependants and also inform us that
“.
.
.
Social Security
offices provide benefits to maintain mortgage instalments, hire
purchase instalments and other outgoings, all
of
them items which
go to make up the standard of life of the striker as much as of his
family.”
As an aside, we are told that the
PAYE
system, with its system
of rebates, should employment be interrupted, also has an effect
on strikes:
‘‘
As the tax year advances, rebates,due to an employee
.
.
. become larger . . . which partially explains the high incidence
of
strikes in the later part
of
the
PAYE
tax year.” It
is
also implied
that the practice of strikers taking on undeclared jobs during strikes
(i.e.
fraud) goes on at a sufficient level that some allowance should
be made in estimates of the requirements of strikers’ families.
It is argued that the present system should be changed for a
variety
of
reasons, the most important of which are that the govern-
ment may be subsidising strikes which
“. .
. may have as their purpose
the frustration of policies approved by Parliament
. . .”
for example,
strikes for pay increases which are in breach of incomes policies;
that the availability of supplementary benefit affects the decision
to strike; and that unions are letting the State do the job
of
providing
31
“
Financing strikes,” Conservative Political Centre,
July
1974.
To continue reading
Request your trial