THE new Business Secretary Sajid Javid said yesterday that there will be ‘significant changes’ to strike laws under the new Tory regime.
Under it a strike affecting essential public services will need the backing of 40% of eligible union members, on a minimum turn-out of 50%, he said.
This means that a turn-out of 77%, with 39% ‘Yes’ and 38% ‘No’, would still not be enough to make a strike legal!
On the other hand if the no vote declined to vote and the turn out was less than 50%, a strike vote of over 40%, would still be illegal under the new anti-union measures.
The unions have responded with the obvious – that such a new Tory law ‘will make legal strikes close to impossible’.
Javid told the BBC’s Today Programme: that a strike affecting health, transport, fire services or schools will need to be backed by 40% of eligible union members, and there will still need to be a minimum 50% turnout in strike ballots.
This means that the best thing for the ‘no vote’ to do in a close run thing is not to vote at all!
As well the government is to change the law to allow the formation of gangs of professional strike breakers, under the guise that they are agency staff whom the bosses will be able to hire to replace strikers.
The message is, if you strike you will be jailed if the action is ‘illegal,’ and if it is legal, you will be replaced by strikebreakers and blacklisted.
The changes to the law to make this scenario possible are to be announced in the forthcoming Queen’s Speech.
That strike breaking and union busting is the priority of the government was further underlined when Javid told the BBC that changes to trade union rules will be part of one of the first bills to be brought forward by the government.
Katja Hall, CBI deputy director general, commented: ‘The introduction of a threshold is an important – but fair – step to rebalance the interests of employers, employees, the public and the rights of trade unions.
‘For nearly five years the CBI has been saying that recruiting agency workers to plug gaps during a strike is not about threatening strikers’ jobs, but providing essential cover during periods of action so businesses can continue to serve their customers.’
The idea that once the strike is broken those that have been replaced will be invited to return to work is laughable.
The TUC said the changes to the law would favour the UK”s ‘worst bosses’.
‘This is a government not so much on the side of hard working people, but Britain’s worst bosses – those who want their staff to be on zero-hours contracts, poverty pay and unable to effectively organise in a union so that they can do something about it,’ said TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady.
She added for good measure: ‘Union negotiators will be left with no more power than Oliver Twist when he asked for more.
‘After five years of falling living standards, the prospects for decent pay rises have just got a whole lot worse.’ O’Grady says that this law will leave union negotiators with no power.
She is right in only one sense and that is that the era of negotiations is over, and is being replaced by an open class struggle with the bosses, supported by their state apparatus, battling it out to drive the working class back centuries.
In fact it is the working class that has the power, and desperately needs a leadership that will use that overwhelming power to smash the bosses and bankers. This the TUC leadership is unwilling to do!
There must be an immediate recall of the TUC Congress. The TUC leadership that dumped the motion calling for continuing to examine the practicalities for organising a general strike at last September’s TUC Congress must be sacked and replaced by leaders who will fight to win.
The TUC must call one-day general strike on the day of the Queen’s Speech as a preparation for calling an indefinite general strike when the bill gets its first reading in Parliament. This strike will be to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers’ government and socialism!
