THE ILO (International Labour Organisation), the official body of the United Nations responsible for upholding workers’ rights, has slammed the Tory anti-strike laws and demanded that the government ensures that current and future legislation respects international law.
In a rare intervention, the ILO said that the UK government needs to ‘ensure that existing and prospective legislation is in conformity’ with international rules on freedom of association.
The TUC reported the Tory government to the ILO last September over anti-union laws that attacked the right to strike with its ‘minimum service level’ bill that allows employers and the government to force workers to break strikes in ‘critical’ sectors or face instant dismissal.
The TUC detailed all the anti-union laws introduced by the Tories designed to outlaw strikes and aimed at fundamentally destroying the rights of freedom of association in trade unions and the right of workers to withdraw their labour – rights which are guaranteed by ILO conventions that have been ratified by the UK.
Along with these came new laws that made it legal for employers to hire agency workers to break strikes – laws that the TUC is currently challenging in the courts with a judgement expected soon.
After nearly nine months of investigation, which included taking written and oral information from the Tory government, the ILO issued a statement yesterday that the ILO ‘requests the government to provide information to facilitate the dialogue between the social partners.’
It also calls for the Tories to provide information on the results of the Undercover Policing Inquiry into the state surveillance of workers and trade unions, and to ensure that existing and any further laws relating to trade union rights are in conformity with the International Convention on workers’ rights.
The statement concludes by inviting the government ‘to avail itself of the technical assistance of the ILO and requests the government to provide information on progress made on all the above issues by 1st September 2023 to the Committee of Experts.’
Responding to this damning report by the ILO, TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: ‘This is hugely embarrassing for the Conservative government and speaks to the scale of anti-union attacks on their watch. The right to strike is a fundamental freedom. But the Conservatives are attacking it in broad daylight with the draconian Strikes Bill.’
Nowak went on: ‘Ministers have been falsely claiming the ILO’s support for a spiteful piece of legislation which only serves to drag us further away from democratic norms. The truth is that the UK already has some of the most restrictive trade union laws in Europe. These new anti-strike curbs will poison industrial relations and do nothing to resolve current disputes.’
Nowak concluded: ‘It’s time to ditch the pernicious Strikes Bill for good and protect the right to strike.’
In fact, the working class will conclude that the time has come to ditch this Tory government as the only way to protect the right to strike.
All the endless appeals to the Tories by the TUC leaders have been met with contempt by a government that is being driven by the demands of the capitalist ruling class to make workers pay for their crisis.
The demand of the bankers and bosses, expressed forcibly by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and the Bank of England, is that workers’ wages must be held down to far below the spiralling cost of living in an attempt to bring down inflation.
With the working class taking strike action across the country demanding wage increases dismissed by the Tories as ‘unaffordable’, smashing the trade unions and the right to strike is an absolute imperative for a bankrupt capitalist system.
The Tories won’t be deterred from waging this class war on the working class by the ILO findings – which are not binding on the government – or by appeals from the TUC leaders.
The only way to smash the anti-union laws is by demanding the TUC immediately calls an indefinite general strike to bring down this Tory anti-union government and go forward to a workers’ government.
A workers government will expropriate the bankers and bosses, replacing bankrupt capitalism with a socialist planned economy.
This is the only way forward.
