Workers at union-busting transnationals like Amazon today are continuing the Tolpuddle Martyrs' heroic struggles for human rights and liberty, union GMB said yesterday.

On the 180th anniversary of the six Dorset labourers' conviction for "administering an illegal oath," GMB said it was pushing for it to be made a crime for firms like Amazon to stop workers forming unions.

On March 17 1834, James Brine, James Hammett, George Loveless, James Loveless, Thomas Standfield and John Standfield were found guilty of forming a union and later sentenced to seven years transportation to Australia.

It unleashed a huge working-class campaign across Britain that won their return after just three years.

GMB general secretary Paul Kenny said 180 years after the trial "too many employers like Amazon still seek to victimise those who stand up for their workmates and help organise unions.

"Short of actual deportation, their methods are the same - fear, intimidation and the threat of the sack aided and abetted by the courts and cheered on in the right-wing media.

"It should be a criminal offence for any employer to interfere with the fundamental civil rights of workers to ask a union to assist them to deal with issues they have at work."

The union has linked up with German union Verdi and French federation CGT to discuss joint action on improving Amazon workers' conditions.

GMB said British union organisation was being forced underground "like the French Resistance" because of fear of reprisals backed by laws that fail to protect workers.

Institute of Employment Rights director Carolyn Jones agreed that British trade union laws still need to be strengthened in wake of historic restrictions and recent attacks.

She told the Star: "Britain has long struggled with restrictive laws on trade union freedoms.

"New restrictions on access to justice mean employers exploit with impunity.

"Working people need a workers' charter - something that should be on the agenda for the 2015 general election."

Mr Kenny added: "GMB fights for exercising rights to freedom of association and liberty in today's workplaces as the Martyrs did in 1834 and celebrates their campaign slogan: 'We raise the watchword liberty. We will we will we will be free'."