TRADE UNIONIST THREATENED WITH TERRORISM ACT
Steve Acheson is a Unite/EPIU member who has been protesting outside Fiddlers Ferry power station, Warrington, since his unfair dismissal by contractors in December 2008. He has now been served with notice of an injunction against his protest. Steve and his supporters stand outside the power station every Monday and Friday from 7. 30 am as a peaceful protest against his unfair dismissal and subsequent denial of a grievance process. None of them has ever attempted to enter the power station, or disrupt generation, or block the entrance to the site.
According to Labour Net, there is a truly Kafka-esque twist, that the papers he was served with for the injunction did not originally give a time, date or place for the court hearing. This is because Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) want to secure an injunction ‘without notice’, that is without Steve knowing of it before it is created. In law this will only be granted if there is an imminent threat of harm or loss. To this end the injunction makes various fantastical claims that Steve and his supporters pose a danger to the National Grid!
We now learn that the hearing is in the Royal Courts of Justice, London, on Wednesday 21st October at 10.30am, and the injunction is being brought under the Terrorism Act ; seeking to show that Steve, as the 1st respondent; others unnamed [as second respondents], by their constant picketing of the site represent “a threat to the energy supplies of this country”.
Because this application is being brought under the Terrorism Act, Steve will not be able to defend himself at this hearing. The basis of the application is that by picketing the site he is committing a Trespass because he and others are on the Firm’s property; that having issued leaflets to workers on the site calling for ‘direct action’ he is ‘inciting’ the workforce to commit acts contrary to the national interest which may impact on energy supplies and; that he has, at times, acted in a way that might have intimidated the workforce.
There is no mention in the company’s deposition to the Court that he was formerly employed by them, nor that his picket represents a campaign against blacklisting. One senior trade union leader in the RMT has already said that if this goes ahead it will have consequences for the whole trade union movement. This is importnat because if anyone has broken the law here it was Steve’s employers who broke local agreements, and the law of the land, in sacking him contrary to the agreed rules on the site. His employer, such is the abysmal contractor culture on these projects, was a sub-contractor to a sub-contractor to a contractor to Scottish and Souther Engery (SSE), and SSE could at any time have got Steve re-instated, or at least got him access to a grievance procedure.
I think this must be the Terrorism Act 2000, not the Prevention of Terrorism Act. I’ve taught on a counter-terrorism course for the last few years, and one of the points I’ve made is that the definition of ‘terrorism’ in the Terrorism Act is so broad that it could apply to any political protest which has any effect, or seems likely to have an effect; it’s only the discretion of the government & the police that keeps it from being invoked much more widely than it is. An employer bringing an injunction under the TA is a new and alarming twist.
Comment by Phil — 19 October, 2009 @ 10:24 pm
Thanks Phil
I was dubious about the law quoted in the press release, and am glad to put this on a sounder footing.
Comment by Andy Newman — 19 October, 2009 @ 10:36 pm
#1 Isn’t the Terorism Act the legislation that’s been used to spy on people by LEAs and councils for all sorts of petty ressons?
Comment by Armchair — 19 October, 2009 @ 10:36 pm
Hopefully they’ve picked a bad week for being granted sweeping injunctions.
Comment by Strategist — 19 October, 2009 @ 10:45 pm
This sounds like the Taff Vale judgement in another form, for those who remember their O-level Trade Union history.
Comment by James Smith — 20 October, 2009 @ 4:21 am
Andy are you still going to back new Labour in ligth of this ?
Comment by steelcityred — 20 October, 2009 @ 7:10 am
Is this action really being taken under provisions of the Terrorism Acts?
Let me display my profound ignorance here - I’ve taken a quick look at the series of specific anti-terrorism statutes passed since 2000 and nowhere can I find any provision that creates a possibility for an injunction in English law or an interdict in Scots law relating to terrorism as defined in the 2000 Act or “a threat to the energy supplies of this country” relating to the circumstances quoted here.
Now I am not a practising lawyer, and I may well have just missed it, but is it not possible that this article is wrongly citing the use of anti-terrorism laws, and that the employer in this case is merely asking for an injunction in the ordinary civil law and trying it on with the courts? I am assuming that the union will be well represented legally and able to make a strong defence at the hearing tomorrow.
Could anyone who actually knows the law in these matters comment on the interesting legal issues here?
Comment by Fullyplumped — 20 October, 2009 @ 10:26 pm
Well, nobody’s come up with anything solid in respect of whether the Terrorism Acts apply here, or give rise to any kind of injunction, but it seems as if the court has thrown the petition out.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8319157.stm
“Scottish and Southern Energy’s attempt to serve an injunction on electrician Steve Acheson was dismissed and called “a fantasy” at the High Court. The judge, who took less than three hours to hear the evidence and decide on his verdict, told the energy company that their claims were “fantasy bordering on the edge of paranoia”.
Comment by Fullyplumped — 21 October, 2009 @ 7:34 pm
As a blacklisted construction worker and having known Steve a long time, I was at the High Court today. The prosecution were laughably poorly prepared, however if that hadn’t been the case then things could have been very different.
SSE in house lawyer also made it clear to Steve’s supporters after the case that they will continue to go after him.
Trade unionists in the area should be organising mass pickets in support of this principled worker.
Comment by WF Trades Council — 21 October, 2009 @ 8:48 pm
I thought things like this only happened here in the US. That is absolutely disgusting.
Comment by libhomo — 22 October, 2009 @ 11:48 am
I don’t suppose anyone’s going to acknowledge that the Terrorism Acts don’t give any right to obtain an injunction. This aspect of the story was just made up. It’s just a detail, unimportant in the larger scheme of things, but we obsessives like detail.
WF Trades Council - the “prosecution” could not be properly prepared because there was no law for them to prepare an argument around. They were trying it on. It would be helpful, if you were in court, if you would outline the arguments the employer’s side made.
I’m really only making this comment because inevitably someone will quote this article as more evidence that the Terrorism Acts are being used to suppress trade union rights, and they aren’t.
Comment by Fullyplumped — 23 October, 2009 @ 1:04 am
@fullyplumped.
The “Terrorism Act” reporting of this story is also bothering me. As written it doesn’t make sense … from what I can gather, this is simply about an injunction and the terrorism part is a red-herring.
That said, does anyone have a copy of the court transcript, or a link to said, so that someone can make sense of what happened?
Comment by gyges — 27 October, 2009 @ 2:38 pm