THE High Court yesterday followed up its decision to ban strike action at British Airways at Christmas by banning strike action at Network Rail this Easter.
ASLEF train drivers’ union member Bill Rogers told News Line: ‘It’d be easier to have a revolution than to have a legal strike! That’s what it’s coming to.
‘I believe the whole trade union movement should walk out over this one.
‘It’s about time that we showed we’ll stand up for our rights.’
Angry rail union members with placards saying ‘rail cuts cost lives’ demonstrated outside the High Court against the granting of the injunction to Network Rail.
The injunction was granted when Network Rail bosses challenged the signal workers’ ballot in favour of action in defence of rail safety.
Over 1500 sackings are planned by Network Rail, warn the rail unions, and rail maintenance workers also voted for the strike, from April 6-9.
RMT rail union General Secretary Bob Crowe said: ‘This judgement is an attack on the whole trade union movement and twists the anti-union laws even further in favour of the bosses.
‘Workers fighting for the principle of a safe railway have had the full weight of the law thrown against them.
‘Our executive will meet again with the recommendation of a re-ballot, our commitment to fight for a safe railway goes on.’
Transport Secretary Lord Adonis welcomed the bourgeois court’s judgement against the trade unions, describing it as ‘a huge relief’.
l Before yesterday’s judgement the TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber sounded the alarm for the ruling class, that there is the ‘very real risk’ of a strike wave in Britain, regardless of the court’s ruling in the rail dispute.
The TUC general secretary said action would spread in the aftermath of the upcoming general election, if even bigger cuts to the public sector are imposed.
‘If there are serious cuts in public spending and in vital public services, then there are very real risks of some very difficult disputes,’ said Barber.
He warned: ‘Whoever wins the election will have to think very carefully before they reach for the axe.’
Barber said that: ‘The BA issue has come to a head now only because of the legal action and the failure to resolve the issue in the three or four months since.’
He said there were ‘huge worries about the policy stances of a potential Conservative government’.
Barber added: ‘There is a worry if a Tory government takes an antagonistic line to the trade union movement that that would increase the risks of real clashes.’
