‘Bellowing mob’

Carolyn Taylor (Letters, 5 November) muddies the waters when she accuses those who question the recent activities of Unite at Grangemouth of being anti-union.

Many of us with long family ties to organised ­labour deplore this return to 1970s militancy and the use of a “dirty tricks” squad to target the families of Ineos executives.

The Unite union leader Len McCluskey claims the bully-boy tactics of his “leverage team” do not violate laws ­banning secondary picketing since they do not actually prevent people going to work.

But the relevant section of the Trade Union Act 1992 only protects pickets operating near their workplace who “peacefully encourage others to withdraw their labour”.

It does not protect a bellowing mob of pickets invading the ­garden of a private house to terrify the family’s small children and having alarmed neighbours call the police.

(Dr) John Cameron

Howard Place

St Andrews