Latest editorial
Fire Bridge Union members during the demonstration in Parliament Square, London, against the government's controversial legislation on minimum levels of service during strikes, May 22, 2023
TORY ministers have declared war on working people, unions charged today after the government whipped its MPs to reject House of Lords amendments to its widely condemned anti-strikes Bill.
The legislation aims to empower bosses and even ministers to sack workers who refuse to cross their own picket lines and provide an as yet undefined minimum service level during walkouts in six sectors, including transport and education.
The Bill was savaged by peers, who passed several amendments, including removing the threat of dismissal from anyone refusing a “work order” and limiting the provisions to England only after devolved Labour and SNP ministers in Wales and Scotland respectively condemned it.
Labour must not allow unelected members of the upper house to erode a single provision of the Employment Rights Bill, argues ANDY MCDONALD MP
The Bill addresses some exploitation but leaves trade unions heavily regulated, most workers without collective bargaining coverage, and fails to tackle the balance of power that enables constant mutation of bad practice, write KEITH EWING and LORD JOHN HENDY KC
It is only trade union power at work that will materially improve the lot of working people as a class but without sector-wide collective bargaining and a right to take sympathetic strike action, we are hamstrung in the fight to tilt back the balance of power, argues ADRIAN WEIR
