The head of the UK commerce union motion has accused the federal government of an assault on a “fundamental” British liberty after ministers set out proposals that might severely constrain employees’ potential to take strike motion.
Frances O’Grady, the Trades Union Congress basic secretary, hit out on the plans from transport secretary Grant Shapps and international secretary Liz Truss, the frontrunner to be Britain’s subsequent prime minister.
O’Grady instructed the Financial Times the proposals amounted to “a fundamental attack on a fundamental British liberty — that when the boss won’t listen or compromise, workers have the right, internationally recognised, to withdraw their labour”.
Mick Lynch, chief of the RMT union, additionally lashed out at Truss’ plans to curb union rights, saying in a press release that in the event that they turned regulation, it could spark resistance “rivalling the general strike of 1926, the Suffragettes and Chartism”.
His warning got here on a fourth day of strike motion by the RMT that shut down a lot of the UK’s rail community, with unions, trade bosses and ministers buying and selling recriminations.
Truss on Monday proposed sweeping reform of UK union legal guidelines that might assure minimal companies throughout strikes and lift the brink for the variety of employees that should participate in ballots on industrial motion.
Shapps raised the stakes additional by setting out a 16-point plan meant to “complete Thatcher’s unfinished business”, together with banning what he known as “union collusion”, and making it more durable for strike votes to go.
O’Grady accused the federal government of “shovelling salt in the wounds” of employees who had been confronting “one of the longest, harshest squeezes on living standards in 200 years”.
“If you make the right to strike meaningless in this country, you are putting yourself firmly on the side of bad employers,” she stated.
The authorities has already rushed by means of laws permitting employers to rent company employees to exchange putting employees — a measure that was closely criticised by enterprise teams and now faces a authorized problem by 12 unions.
O’Grady stated the federal government had “misjudged the public mood” by continuing with the laws, accusing it of “doing a P&O” — a reference to the ferry operator’s motion this yr when it fired its total UK crew in an effort to substitute them with cheaper abroad company employees.
“They cried crocodile tears over the way P&O behaved, replacing unionised workers with agency labour, and now they have given that right to every cowboy employer out there,” she added.
O’Grady performed down solutions that unions may be a part of forces in a basic strike, noting they had been finally accountable to their members.
But she stated co-ordination between unions working in the identical sector or firm was commonplace observe and that folks had been able to battle again towards authorities makes an attempt “to divide working people against each other” within the face of massive real-terms pay cuts.
“I don’t think I’ve seen this level of mutual support and solidarity for a very long time . . . It is really important that government and employers understand just how tough this is and how strongly people feel,” stated O’Grady.
Shapps outlined his proposals within the Daily Telegraph, the place he endorsed Truss’s plans to mandate a minimal service degree throughout strikes affecting crucial infrastructure.
A authorities spokesperson, requested about O’Grady’s feedback, referred the FT to Shapps’ argument within the Telegraph.
The rail strike continued to spark tensions contained in the Labour social gathering.
Labour chief Sir Keir Starmer sacked Sam Tarry, a junior transport spokesperson and former director of the leftwing Momentum group, after he joined a picket line at London’s Euston Station on Wednesday.
A Labour spokesperson stated it took motion not as a result of Tarry had appeared on a picket line however as a result of he had performed so with out first looking for approval.
Sharon Graham, basic secretary of the Unite union, stated Tarry’s removing was “another insult to the trade union movement”, displaying Labour to be “increasingly irrelevant to ordinary working people” because the Conservative authorities “launched a new wave of attacks” on their rights.
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Source: countryask.com