Massive attack

Criminalising pickets, a green light for the creation of specialist strike-busting agencies, attacks on trade union campaigning and links to the Labour Party.

The Tories have announced a wide ranging attack on trade unions and the Labour Party which goes well beyond their manifesto and what was set out in the Queen’s Speech less than two months ago.

It includes criminalising pickets, the use of strike-busting agency workers, much more red tape for ballots and during strike action and further attempts to restrict trade union campaigning and political work.

New laws along the lines set out could place the UK in breach of a range of international laws which protect the right to strike. These include United Nations treaties and International Labour Organisation protocols, and UN backed European treaties.

The ballot restrictions include more complex ballot wording, demanding more than a majority of those who vote in a ballot. Now at least 50 per cent of all workers will have to vote in the ballot as well as a majority having to vote ‘yes’ to make industrial action legal.

There are even higher demands across the public sector –‘emergency workers’ where abstaining on a vote will effectively be taken as a ‘no’ vote.

Higher threshold  

And the higher ballot threshold for what was originally flagged for emergency workers, such as the fire service, and transport workers has now been extended to ‘essential’ workers.

This now includes the NHS, teaching, border security and energy. These workers will need a ballot turnout of at least 50 per cent, where at least 40 per cent of those will need to vote yes for a ballot to be legal.

To put that in context, only 25 per cent of those eligible to vote in the general election backed the Tory Party. No elected local councillor has reached such a threshold of voting support, nor have any of the elected mayors or police commissioners, although all take decisions regarding the cuts to services that can prompt industrial action.

There will have to be fresh industrial action ballots every four months, 14 days’ notice of any industrial action and restrictions on time off for trade union duties. There will be a further restrictions on union campaigning work funded through political funds and tighter restrictions on Labour Party funding by unions.

The Tories claim the unions have effectively ‘mis-sold’ what their political funds do, although they offer no evidence for this. Union members will now have to ‘opt in’ to the political fund every five years.

Labour’s shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna said, “This Bill is the latest in a long line of attempts by the government to stifle reasonable democratic scrutiny, protest and challenge.”

He said it was “another gagging bill” a reference to the last bill hitting unions which restricted union and charity campaigning and political work.

Umunna said, “the Bill tries to drive a false wedge between government, industry, employees and the public by restricting rights – and at worst criminalising – ordinary working people, from midwives to factory workers to challenge low-pay or health and safety concerns.

“All those who care about our democratic rights and an economy where business, employees and government work together for the mutual benefit should expose this Bill for what it is – a divisive piece of legislation which puts to bed any notion that the government is taking a one nation approach.”

Government demands for higher turnouts in strike ballots must go hand in hand with modernising voting methods such as using e-balloting, according to Howard Beckett, Unite’s director of legal services.

“Company shareholders have a range of voting methods open to them,” he told UNITElive as unions await details of the new trade union Bill.

“We can use online services across government, but unions are denied using modern methods for balloting. If they demand higher turnouts for all industrial action ballots that must go hand in hand with modernising voting methods.

“The right to withdraw your labour is a fundamental right that people should be able to exercise,” he said.

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey called on defenders of democracy to oppose the plans.

He said, “These measures aim to deny working people a voice and to tilt power still further towards the rich and big business, who funded the Tory re-election campaign. Tory claims to be the `workers’ party’ can be seen fully for the fraud that they were.

“I appeal to the government to think again.  Do not go back to the days of trade unions being ‘the enemy within’.

“And the party funding proposals are a cynical and partisan attempt to make sure that only the Tories have the cash to fight future elections. Everyone concerned with our democracy should unite to oppose them.”