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EXTRACT FROM TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE GIVEN BY SIR DAVID TRENCH AT KAI TAK ON 17 OCTOBER, 1970
Sir David, the Trade Union Registration Amendment Bill has raised some criticism particularly on the subject of picketing. Have you any comment on this?
I have been a little surprised at the vehemence of the tone of some of the remarks that have been made about this draft bill. What has not quite been realised yet is the status of this particular piece of legislation. It is at present purely the Commissioner of Labour's proposals; he has circulated them for comment, and we have had a certain amount of comment a lot of it very constructive and very helpful - but of course the bill has not been to any of the Councils yet, and it is not, as yet, government policy.
I might make a preliminary point.
Picketing
but only if it is, in
is perfectly acceptable; fact, a method of peaceful persuasion. Once picketing goes beyond peaceful persuasion, then of course it gets on to thin ice and this is really the long and the short of the matter as far as picketing is concerned. But the principal purpose of this bill is to assist the formation of trade unions, and to give the rank and file members of trade unions a further degree of assistance and protection in the running of the union - as between the relationship between the rank and file members of the union and the union officials. That is the principal purpose of the bill. The bill is fairly long and it has about 29 or 30 clauses in it; I think I would be right in saying that there has only been any real comment on about four of these clauses. The rest of the clauses, I think, are pretty generally accepted as being very much in the interests of labour and not in any sense objectionable as far as labour is concerned.
First of all, there is the question of widening the offence of intimidation by the obstruction to roads and streets and so on. We all think this is an interesting point, certainly a valid point to raise. There is plenty of case law