{"id":2687,"date":"2015-01-12T17:55:33","date_gmt":"2015-01-12T17:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=2687"},"modified":"2015-01-12T17:55:33","modified_gmt":"2015-01-12T17:55:33","slug":"chilling-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=2687","title":{"rendered":"Chilling proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

If the Tories have their way in the upcoming election, the UK will have one of the most repressive trade union laws in the developed world.<\/p>\n

 
\nTransport secretary Patrick McLoughlin announced on Friday (January 9) new measures to be included in the Conservative manifesto that would all but make strikes illegal.<\/p>\n

 
\nIn this chilling move, the right to withdraw labour against unfair pay and working conditions\u00e2\u20ac\u201da cornerstone of all developed democracies\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwould be so severely constrained as to render working people essentially powerless in the face of unscrupulous employers.<\/p>\n

 
\nMcLoughlin told The Telegraph<\/em> <\/a>that the \u00e2\u20ac\u015btough new measures\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 would require a minimum 40 per cent eligible voter support threshold for strikes in \u00e2\u20ac\u015bessential services,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 such as health, education, transport and fire services.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe transport secretary alleged that two-thirds of strike ballots since 2010 have attracted less than half of the workforce, but he conveniently forgets the shaky ground on which his party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s power is based. After all, only 23 per cent of those eligible voted for the Conservative party in the last general election, and a mere 17 per cent of London\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s voters supported the city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s current mayor, Boris Johnson, in 2012.<\/p>\n

 
\nAgainst working people<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nUnite general secretary Len McCluskey said the Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 latest move is a dark harbinger of things to come from a party that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decidedly anti-worker.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bYet again, the Conservatives line themselves up behind big business and against working people,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis latest threat will hit workers enacting their fundamental right to stand up for fair wages, to save our public services and defend their jobs and pensions.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nMcCluskey argued that avoiding strikes, which are always a last resort for unions in any case, can be accomplished by other, more democratic means.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe way to resolve such disputes is through negotiations – not to intimidate and silence by legislation,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe way to improve turnouts is to modernise balloting, something trade unions have repeatedly called for but been ignored by the Conservatives who are determined roll back the rights of working people.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nTUC general secretary Frances O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Grady agreed.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe Conservatives know that this threshold will effectively end the right to strike in the public sector,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bNo democracy elsewhere in the world has this kind of restriction on industrial action. It is a democratic outrage, especially as the Conservatives have opposed allowing secure and secret online balloting – the one measure guaranteed to increase turnouts.”<\/p>\n

 
\nO\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Grady said the new proposals, coupled with austerity cuts, would be disastrous for public sector workers.<\/p>\n

 
\n“We know they plan to get rid of a million public sector jobs and cut the value of public sector pay every year in the next Parliament if they win the election,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Grady said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bNow they are also going to make it impossible for public sector workers to resist.”<\/p>\n

 
\nIndeed, the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trade union laws are already the most draconian in Europe. In 2010, the European Social Rights Committee found the UK to have violated the European Social Charter, which enshrines the right to collective action. The committee found<\/a> that, in the UK, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bthe scope for workers to defend their interests through lawful collective action is excessively circumscribed,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 meaning legal industrial action is already nearly impossible to carry out.<\/p>\n

 
\nConservatives have also called for lifting a ban on the use of agency workers during industrial action, as well as an end to rolling mandates.<\/p>\n

 
\nIn this anti-union climate, one already recognised as such by the wider European community, the Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 efforts to further hobble collective action can only be construed as an all-out attack on working people.<\/p>\n

 
\n“This speaks volumes about the sort of government we could expect from the Tories,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said McCluskey. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe already have the most backwards trade union laws in Europe yet they want to bounce us further to the dark ages. In the year we commemorate the birth of our freedoms with the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, the Tories want to place the UK in the same league as some of the most anti-democratic regimes on the planet.<\/p>\n

 
\n“These moves are chilling, and will ring alarm bells in workplaces right across the land.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If the Tories have their way in the upcoming election, the UK will have one of the most repressive trade union laws in the developed world.   Transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin announced on Friday (January 9) new measures to be included in the Conservative manifesto that would all but make strikes illegal.   In this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"The Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 latest all-out attack on working people","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2688,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687\/revisions\/2688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}