LAST week, the Tories’ strike-breaking agency worker regulations were thrown out after the High Court ruled they were unlawful.
This judgement quashed an appeal by the government against a ruling by the High Court last month that the regulations were unlawful because the then Tory secretary of State for Business Kwasi Kwarteng had failed to consult with the unions on these regulations.
The Tories may have withdrawn slightly bruised over the use of agency strike-breakers but the drive to enforce the whole even more draconian anti-strike laws has not gone away.
The Tories have much bigger weapons in their armoury to break strikes than the agency workers regulations that the judges ruled to be so unfair ‘as to be unlawful and indeed irrational’ and which even the agency companies themselves rebelled against describing them as ‘unworkable’.
They saw clearly that the sight of temporary semi-trained agency workers driving trains or replacing nurses and ambulance drivers was the product of an increasingly demented Tory government thrashing around for any way to break strikes.
The predictable defeat of the Tory regulations hasn’t stopped TUC general secretary Paul Nowak from claiming last week’s judgement was a ‘major blow’ to ‘ministers’ attempts to undermine the right to strike’.
Nowak congratulated the Tories for ‘doing the right thing’, saying: ‘Ministers know they broke the law when they tried to push through unworkable, shoddy legislation on agency workers covering for strikers. That’s why they have done the right thing and decided not to appeal against the High Court ruling.’
Basking in this minor victory in the courts, Nowak called for a ‘clear commitment’ from the Tories not to overturn the ban on agency workers to break strikes in the future.
Nowak went even further in his appeal to the Tories to ‘do the right thing’, saying: ‘And they should scrap the Strikes Act too – another piece of legislation that has been rushed through parliament, which will only sour industrial relations and drag out disputes.’
The Strikes (Minimum Service Level) Act, which was given the Royal Assent and became law on the 20th July, is of an entirely different order than Kwarteng’s attempt at bringing in agency strike breaking regulations. This Act forces workers to cross picket lines and attend for work during strike action – even strikes that have been legally called and voted on by union members – in order to meet minimum levels decided on and dictated to them by the employers and Tories.
Any workers refusing an instruction to break a strike will face instant dismissal with no right of appeal.
Trade unions now have a legal duty to take all reasonable steps to make workers comply with orders to carry on working during a strike – failure would result in the unions being liable for massive fines.
As soon as the Act became law, the Tories announced that they would immediately proceed with plans to implement minimum service levels for passenger rail services, the ambulance service and fire and rescue services. This law won’t be overturned by any court and the Tories won’t be moved by appeals from the TUC to ‘do the right thing’ by workers.
The attack on the basic right of workers to withdraw their labour is being driven by a massive crisis that is driving British capitalism over the cliff into recession and collapse.
The only way out for the ruling class is to force a powerful working class to submit to having its lives destroyed by inflation and mass unemployment, while all the gains of the past, including the NHS, are smashed beyond repair and privatised out of existence.
The TUC is refusing to lead any fight against this Tory government and its laws designed to shackle the working class to a decaying capitalist system in its death agony.
At the TUC Congress in four weeks time, the working class must intervene and force the TUC to act by calling a general strike to kick out the Tories and bring in a workers government and socialism.
Join the WRP lobby of the TUC Congress in Liverpool on Monday 11th September to force the TUC to call a general strike.
This is the only way to defend the right to strike.
