The Papal Union Congress

It's taken two days for me to realise that for the duration of the Pope's visit to the UK I will not be able to watch the news. It seems that, while many either oppose or are entirely indifferent to the Pope's state-funded visit to the UK, Mark Thompson sees it as so important an event that the BBC News channel has been given over to coverage of the various prayer services Pope Benedict is leading. Fortunately, where BBC News has failed, BBC Parliament has pulled through in dramatic style with coverage of that once-yearly masterclass in polemics, the Trades Union Congress. The gaffes and controversial throwaway comments of Benedict's visit to the UK are replaced by the nervous man stood on the podium with a Dragon's Den style panel to his right, fumbling his way through a defence of employment rights against an increasingly hostile judiciary. In what is essentially a Dave-style rerun of Taff Vale, the TUC (or the bit of it that I watched while cooking breakfast) is discussing the role of judges in the area of employment. Obviously fueled by the judgment earlier this year that ruled the ballot calling for a strike of British Airways staff as illegal, the TUC feels that its legal rights are threatened. Appeals against strike action that has been determined by ballot are becoming commonplace and appear to be a threat to the continued functioning of the Trade Union movement. The solution is simple; employers launch judicial appeals against "illegal" ballots when the result supports a strike action, in turn the TUC should, in its 142nd year, launch a legal appeal against every ballot that doesn't result in industrial action. If the ballot is illegal then the result shouldn't matter, the ballots that condemn strike action are just as illegal as those that uphold it so why not just invert the results and you've got a nice representative system; the usually peaceful unions would be on almost permanent sympathy strike for the more disruptive ones. Granted, under this new system it would be nearly impossible to get hold of knitting accessories and the Association for Clinical Biochemistry would be picketing your local University chemistry department but at least Unite wouldn't go on strike again. Adam Zejma.