DELEGATES at the GMB conference in Brighton booed and jeered Business Secretary Cable yesterday as he threatened to bring in new anti-union laws to ban strikes.
Delegates applauded and shouted ‘YES’, when, referring to a day of co-ordinated strike action planned by unions representing 750,000 teachers, lecturers, civil servants and other public sector workers for June 30, Cable started: ‘Later this month we may well witness a day of industrial action across significant parts of the public sector.’
Then there were even louder cheers as he continued: ‘And the usual suspects, if I might call them that, will call for general strikes and widespread disruption.’
But there were angry shouts and jeers when he went on: ‘Should strikes impose serious damage to our economic and social fabric the pressure on us to act will ratchet up.’
As he was making his speech delegates held up a banner which read: ‘Vince Cable not welcome – Stop Attacking Workers’ Rights’.
After the speech, GMB General Secretary Paul Kenny described Cable’s comments as ‘an insult to working people’.
He insisted: ‘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.’
Sarah Veale of the TUC 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.’
RMT General Secretary Bob Crow described Cable’s speech as ‘calculated to be both provocative and insulting’.
Crow said: ‘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.’
Cable’s speech was echoing calls from the Mayor of London Johnson and bosses’ organisation the CBI for laws to outlaw strikes unless at least half of the union members in a workplace take part in a ballot.
But Kenny said Cable’s speech may have increased the chance of widespread disruption.
‘The GMB and other unions are still in negotiation,’ he said.
‘My honest view is that speech today has been very unhelpful. I think people’s reaction on the ground is going to be “if you’re going to threaten us, then bring it on”.’
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