“Franco-style” anti-strike law in Britain approved, though weakened

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Britain has the second-lowest number of workers covered by collective bargaining in Europe, behind only Lithuania. And yet, the UK government has won approval of a tougher new law for trade unions, who warn it would make legal strike action almost impossible.

Since winning a slim majority at last May’s general election, David Cameron’s Conservatives have rushed new restrictions on trade unions through Parliament. On Wednesday 4 May, the Act received Royal Assent and became law, though after a battle that watered it down.

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey still called it a “dark day” for working people, while Frances O’Grady, head of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), remarked: “The history books will show that the government’s first major act of this Parliament has been to attack the right to strike – a fundamental British liberty.”

The headline measure of the legislation is a 50 per cent turnout threshold on all strike ballots - meaning half of all union members eligible to vote must support industrial action for it to be legal.

The small print includes policies that could be equally damaging to the ability of unions to represent their members. Picket line supervisors will now be forced to give their names to the police, a requirement that has been likened to Franco’s Spain by Conservative MP David Davis.

John Hendy, the go-to lawyer for Britain’s trade unions, told Equal Times: “It is certainly going to make it harder to call disputes. Some parts of it are going to have a profound effect.

“But people will feel galvanised and angry about this unnecessary and pernicious act,” he said. “It could actually have the untended consequence of raising participation in industrial action.”

 
Climbdowns

Trade unions and opposition parties have forced the government to drop some of the most extreme measures. The government abandoned proposals in November to make trade unions give the police two weeks’ notice of any social media activity they planned during industrial action.

And in the most humiliating moment, the government lost three votes in as many hours in the House of Lord (the unelected upper chamber), where the Conservatives do not have a majority.

That forced the government to drop plans from the bill to ban public sector workers paying their union dues directly from their wages, which would have seen unions lose millions of pounds.

“There’s much that’s wrong with the Trade Union Bill, but banning unions from using the check-off system to collect membership fees from employees in the public sector was among the most mean-spirited of all its proposals,” said Dave Prentis, general secretary of public sector union Unison.

The final climbdown was perhaps the most significant. The government has agreed to hold a review to consider whether online strike ballots – a key union demand – are safe. That could see strike ballots conducted online rather than by post in future and help unions overcome the 50 per cent turnout threshold.

 
Brexit link?

There were suggestions that the prime minister made the concessions to incentivise trade unions to mobilise their members in the EU referendum on June 23. With the Conservatives split over the issue, Cameron is relying on Labour voters to carry the “Remain” campaign to victory.

Ian Lavery, a former miner who is now the shadow minister for trade unions, maintains outright opposition to the new law.

“Although Labour and the trade union movement worked hard to secure vital and important concessions, it is still a viciously bad bill,” he told Equal Times. “The intent behind the bill isn’t to ‘modernise’ the trade union movement, but to hobble it.

“It will make it harder for unions to defend rights at work, it will make it harder to organise when rights are under threat and it will make engaging new members even harder.”

Lavery is working with trade unions to write new legislation that will replace the new Conservative law the next time a Labour prime minister walks through the doors of Downing Street.