THE TUC yesterday published an analysis that showed that 5.5 million workers in England, Scotland and Wales would have their right to strike threatened by the Tories’ Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill which had its third reading in the House of Lords yesterday before returning to the Commons to be voted into law.
If this Bill is passed unamended, and with the large Tory majority of MPs this is a certainty, then when workers lawfully vote to strike in health, education, fire, transport, border security and nuclear decommissioning, they face being forced to cross picket lines and attend for work or face instant dismissal.
The health service is by far the largest sector under attack, with the rights of 2.9 million health workers in the Tories’ sights.
Health workers are followed by 2.08 million in the education sector and 1.01 million workers in the transport industry.
Power to define what exactly are ‘essential services’ during strike action will be entirely in hands of the Tory business secretary, who alone will have the power to impose new minimum service levels.
Of course, once this bill is passed into law it won’t just be 5.5 million workers who will have their right to strike stripped away, as the Tories will claim the right to extend the legislation to all sectors deemed ‘essential’ for the survival of British capitalism as it crashes into recession.
Introducing this analysis, the TUC complained that the Tories have ‘failed to come clean about the draconian nature of the Bill’ accusing ministers of ‘shortcutting normal scrutiny procedures’ and ‘ramming’ the Bill through Parliament.
Commenting on the analysis, TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: ‘This is a spiteful Bill. No one should be sacked for trying to win a better deal at work.’
Nowak said of the Bill: ‘It’s undemocratic, it’s unworkable and it’s very likely illegal,’ adding: ‘With inflation still running at over 10%, the last thing workers need is for ministers to make it harder to secure better pay and conditions.’
Nowak concluded with an appeal to the Tories saying, ‘It’s time for ministers to protect the right to strike and ditch this Bill for good.’
At a time when the Tories are determined to destroy the right of workers to strike, the last thing they need is a TUC leadership that is on its knees and reduced to begging Tory ministers to protect their right to strike.
The right of workers to withdraw their labour was not gifted to them by a benevolent capitalist system, it was won in bitter class struggles that saw workers organising unions under conditions of illegality in the 19th century.
The right to strike will never be defended in Parliament or the courts – certainly not by the Labour Party whose leader Keir Starmer has openly sided with the bosses.
Last December, Starmer, speaking at a meeting of business leaders on a charm offensive to convince them that Labour was the ‘party of business’, refused to commit any future Labour government to repealing the anti-strike laws.
The reality is that British capitalism is in a desperate crisis and the capitalist class know full well that the only way out for them is to smash the trade unions and attempt to drive the working class into the gutter of poverty and back to the days of the ‘Hungry 30s’.
All ideas about fighting the anti-union laws through appeals to Tory ministers and through the courts is a dangerous diversion to avoid the real struggle required.
There is only one way to defeat the anti-union laws and that is for the trade union leaders to call an emergency meeting of the TUC congress to set a date for an indefinite general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers’ government and socialism.
Those leaders like Nowak who refuse to mobilise the strength of the working class must be removed and replaced with a new leadership prepared to call a general strike to kick out the Tories.
This is the only way forward.
Join the WRP today to lead the struggle for the victory of the British socialist revolution. There is no time to lose.
