UNIONS have reacted angrily following the Tory-LibDem Coalition government’s Business Secretary Vince Cable’s threat to ban strikes.
Cable accepted an invitation from GMB General Secretary Paul Kenny to speak to the GMB conference in Brighton on Monday, and he used that opportunity to launch an attack on trade unions and to threaten a new strike ban.
Referring to June 30, when 750,000 teachers, lecturers, civil servants and other public sector workers are to take co-ordinated strike action, Cable drew shouts of ‘YES’ from the audience when he started: ‘Later this month we may well witness a day of industrial action across significant parts of the public sector.’
Then, as he continued, delegates cheered even more when he said: ‘And the usual suspects, if I might call them that, will call for general strikes and widespread disruption.’
But Cable was booed and increasingly interrupted as he continued: ‘This will excite the usual media comments about a summer or an autumn of discontent, and another group of the usual suspects will exploit the situation to call for the tightening of strike law.
‘We are undoubtedly entering a difficult period.
‘Cool heads will be required all round.
‘Despite occasional blips, I know that strike levels remain historically low, especially in the private sector.
‘On that basis, and assuming this pattern continues, the case for changing strike law is not compelling.
‘However, should the position change, and should strikes impose serious damage to our economic and social fabric, the pressure on us to act would ratchet up.
‘That is something which both you, and certainly I, would wish to avoid.’
As he spoke delegates held up a banner which read: ‘Vince Cable not welcome – Stop Attacking Workers’ Rights.’
Responding to Cable’s threats, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: ‘The right to strike is a basic human right.
‘Trade unions already face the sort of restrictive practices not experienced by any other area of the economy.
‘Public sector workers are currently facing unprecedented ideological attacks on their jobs, pensions, pay and conditions which will throw the economy into further recession.
‘This government and the bankers who caused the economic crisis are inflicting the greatest damage to our economic and social fabric by cutting public sector jobs, axing vital services and attacking communities.’
TUC Head of Equalities and Employment Rights Sarah Veale said: ‘The UK already has some of the toughest strike legislation in the developed world so there is no justification for further curbs, as the Minister himself acknowledges.’
She added: ‘Workers in the public sector are having their pensions rights eroded.
‘Union laws in this country are much tighter than in other countries in the EU and it would be counter productive to tighten up the strike laws.’
Communication Workers Union General Secretary Billy Hayes said: ‘It seems that Vince Cable wants to elect a new people.
‘There’s nothing very liberal about threatening to change the law if it doesn’t produce the result you want.’
Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey said: ‘Vince Cable, as a Liberal, ought to be ashamed of the company he has been keeping.
‘How can a professed liberal seek to crack down on human rights?
‘Today’s workers are the sons, daughters and grandchildren of the people who fought for freedom in Europe.
‘Yet here we are today with the obscenity of a British government threatening to deny people the fundamental right to withdraw their labour.
‘It is no coincidence that the government is engineering this fight now.
‘All eyes have been on our comatose economy and the government’s colossal failure to address this.
GMB General Secretary Paul Kenny said: ‘The GMB is a serious union.
‘We invited the government minister to come down down and tell us about how the economy is going to move, how we’re going to get jobs, and the reality of life is that to suggest that somehow the government will act if there’s any economic damage created by people trying to defend their living standards is laughable and that’s why he got the reaction he did.’
He added: ‘Coming and speaking to an audience like ours, who want to engage in really important issues and then suggesting somehow that if workers have the temerity after everything’s failed, after they’ve lived the dialogue with the deaf with the government over their living conditions, if at the end of that they exercise their democratic right in a democratic country to withdraw their labour, that the government will introduce draconian laws to try to stop them, well, you know, what did he think was going to happen?
‘People won’t be threatened and intimidated by that sort of talk I can assure you. In that sense he has inflamed people. It is the completely wrong approach.’
RMT General Secretary Bob Crow: ‘People are wanting to go on strike because the bankers that caused this crisis are now making the public sector pay for it by cutting services and reducing members’ pay and conditions.
‘For example in Southampton, where all the workforce has been told you either cut your pay by five per cent or we sack every one of you and bring you back on worse terms and conditions.
‘They never created this problem, and what are we supposed to do as trade unions, just sit back and let the employers walk all over us?
‘But you can talk about new laws for trade unions, that by the way, as Tony Blair said when he got elected are already the most restrictive in the western world, he can bring new laws in to stop people fighting back to protect their pay and conditions, but he can’t bring new laws in to clamp down on bankers and their excessive profits that caused the crisis in the first place.’
Crow continued: ‘We have had laws passed against trade unionists for the last 120 years.
‘You can put workers into a straightjacket; we will always fight.
‘The reason why we call strikes is not because we want our members to lose money, it’s because the employers, dominated by this government, are making the public pay by cutting their services and making our members have their pay and conditions cut.’
He added: ‘Cable is effectively telling us that the right to strike is something we can have only if we choose not to use it.
‘He is trying to come across as the nice cop of the ConDem coalition, but the truth is that he wants us to sit back and watch as his government destroys our jobs and wrecks our services.
‘Working people are under attack as never before, and if it takes co-ordinated strike action and civil disobedience to stop it then so be it.
‘Britain already has repressive anti-union laws that are outside legal norms and we have to jump through hoops to take action as it is.’
Mayor of London Johnson and bosses group, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), have already called for tougher trade union laws.
Johnson wants laws to prevent a strike taking place unless at least half of the union members in a workplace take part in a ballot.
Cable is said to favour changes in the law to force unions to provide a minimum service level during a strike.
The CBI has called for a minimum of 40 per cent of union members balloted to vote in favour of a strike before it is legal.
