RMT union rep Mark Harding’s vindication at Hammersmith magistrates’ court yesterday is a victory for all our labour rights.

Mr Harding faced accusations of “violence” and “intimidation” for standing on a picket line during a legitimate industrial dispute and asking a strike-
breaking worker to respect that picket line.

As his union has consistently made clear from the start the case reeked of political motivation. 

The not guilty verdict is therefore worth celebrating. But the fact that a prosecution went ahead at all is a warning to the labour movement.

There was no credible evidence that the branch secretary of Hammersmith and City RMT had broken the law — this despite the fact that the law in question is the draconian Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1992, brought in by a Tory regime determined to stamp the life out of organised labour.

After being detained by police for 13 hours, Mr Harding was then slapped with bail conditions designed to stop him taking part in his fellow workers’ fight against ticket office closures and job losses on the Tube, which pose a serious threat to safety and efficiency on London’s transport network.

He was ordered not to be within Hammersmith Metropolitan Line station and, specifically, not to be “actively involved in any RMT trade union or any other union associated with LUL/TfL or to be in attendance at any organised industrial action until the case is finalised.”

Only after legal protestations at these ludicrous terms — plus an outcry from his RMT comrades, other trade unions and Labour MPs —  were they overturned.

RMT acting general secretary Mick Cash slams “just another attempt to tighten the noose of the anti-trade union laws around the necks of those sections of the working class prepared to stand up and fight.”

Spot on. 

Mr Harding’s worry that a guilty verdict would have shown courts were prepared to take unsubstantiated accusations as gospel if they are directed at union reps taking industrial action is well-founded.

Ms Justice Baines’s ruling shows this is, thankfully, not yet the case. 

But the labour movement continues to face the ever-tightening noose described by Mr Cash.

The strike action on the underground — supported by a majority of Londoners, incidentally — prompted a torrent of anti-union bile from the Tories and their pliant media mouthpieces.

And this very dispute spurred calls from London Mayor Boris Johnson to ban workers from striking unless arbitrary “turnout thresholds” are met, effectively treating every member who hasn’t voted as a vote against action.

As pointed out at the time, such rules applied to general elections would disqualify every MP. But this hasn’t stopped Prime Minister David Cameron jumping on the bandwagon and hinting the proposal will feature in the Tory manifesto next year.

The labour movement should expose this wheeze for the sorry assault on workers’ rights that it is. But we must do more.

The shackles around our movement were not removed by 13 years of Labour Party power from 1997 to 2010. 

Every Labour candidate should be made to commit to a reversal of the anti-trade union laws before the 2015 election and told to back the TUC’s Trade Union Freedom Bill, as many left MPs already do.

The lesson of this case is that it is not union reps who are guilty of intimidation. It is the British state and its attempt to silence working people through police bullying.

For now we congratulate Mr Harding on proving his innocence. But this fight is far from over.