Frances O’Grady speeach to NUJ's Journalism in the age of mass surveillance event

Frances O’Grady was one of the speakers at NUJ's Journalism in the age of mass surveillance event at Kings Place, London on Thursday 16 October 2014. For more information about the event visit www.nuj.org.uk/campaigns/safeguarding-journalists-and-their-sources

Thanks Michelle ... and thanks to NUJ for everything you do to promote a free and responsible press.

And thanks to the Guardian newspaper ...groundbreaking work exposing the growing reach of our surveillance state.

Nowhere is the debate about surveillance more important than when it comes to journalism – and the right of journalists to do their jobs and protect their sources.

As the NUJ rightly says, the free flow of information in the public interest is vital not just for trades unionism, but for our broader political freedoms.

It’s interesting isn’t it, that whenever governments want to restrict civil liberties, they also look to restrict free trade union freedoms – from the banning of trade unions at GCHQ and the miners’ strike in the 1980s through to the Conservative Party’s plan to include further restrictions on union rights in its next manifesto.

Now things are taking an even more sinister turn.

We know that powerful elites in business and politics increasingly want to keep things secret and keep a beedy eye on the rest of us.

But now they are prepared to do it on an industrial scale.

Take the emergency DRIP legislation, rammed through parliament at breakneck speed with little public consultation.

It gives the authorities new powers to intercept communications on the grounds of  risk to Britain’s “economic wellbeing”.

And the implications for trade unions could be profound – particularly when it comes to organising industrial action.

It’s important to read all this across to the Conservative Party’s proposals to make illegal picketing a criminal offence.

The Conservatives say they want to change the Code on picketing to take into account changes to technology.

That could mean that each picket union organiser would have to provide a mobile phone number to the police; that texts or other forms of electronic communication are scoured  to check whether they are deemed to be intimidatory; and to identify, in advance, the locations at which picketing would occur.

All this would put trade unionists firmly in the firing line of those surveillance and interception powers given to the police in the DRIP Act.

This is just one example of an ever more authoritarian government seeking ever-greater powers to suppress democratic protest and dissent. There are more.

First, the Lobbying Bill.

Part Three of the Bill gives far-reaching powers to the Certification Officer to scrutinise union membership lists. That has major implications for the rights to privacy, and freedom of association, of seven million trade union members.

Yet the Certification Officer has not received a single complaint about union membership lists since 2004. (Before that there were six complaints, and five of those were dismissed).

So what exactly is the rationale for the state being able to access the names, addresses and correspondence of trade union members?

Secondly, the Carr Review into so-called trade union leverage campaign and so-called extreme tactics which was published just yesterday.

Even the Chair, Bruce Carr QC,  complained of politicisation following the Conservative Party’s announcement that it would press ahead with further attacks on unions, that he said his report would contain no  recommendations.

Yesterday, the Daily Mail used the Review’s submissions from 14 employers to claim that unions are using violence, IRA-style dirty protests and even inflatable rats to intimidate employers.

I can confirm that none of these tactics were in evidence on the picket line of NHS workers on Monday, although some midwives were carrying plastic dolls.

Thirdly, despite promises from Nick Clegg, the terms of reference for the Carr review did not include any examination of that real scandal of extreme tactics - blacklisting.

In construction – and elsewhere – there has been corporate surveillance of trade unionists on a mass scale, allegedly with the collusion of the police and security services.

And thousands of ordinary workers have had their livelihoods destroyed as a result.

The TUC has calling for a full public inquiry into the blacklisting. Surely it’s time that those employers who have admitted to using this disgraceful practice are subjected to the same level of scrutiny that this government wants to inflict on the rest of us.

I’ll finish on this note.

Trade unions are an essential part of a free society.

But that society is now at risk.

Protest is being criminalised.

Dissent increasingly outlawed.

And our rights stripped.

In the long run, trade unions, whistleblowers and journalists must be free to speak out and do our jobs, to keep democracy alive.

Our movement led the struggle for human, labour and civil rights in the twentieth century.

And we will continue that campaign in the twenty first.