‘GRANT Schapps doesn’t respect the right to strike. He wants to make strikes ineffective. I don’t believe him at all. I don’t think he’s genuine. I think he just wants to suppress the trade unions,’ said RMT leader Mick Lynch yesterday
In a blistering attack Mr Lynch centred his comments on Grant Schapps saying he ‘doesn’t respect democracy’ and wanted to ‘crush the unions’.
Revealing how his union was taking legal advice, the RMT leader told GB News: ‘We feel outraged like everyone else. This government could have got talks on this week. But instead, they decided to wait until next Monday so that they could make this announcement. Of course, what this is, is an attack on human rights and civil liberties.
‘It’s most important in a free society that we have free trade unions. They’ve lost the argument about the issues and about how public services are funded.
‘They’ve lost the argument on how public sector workers are treated, and they’ve also lost the argument on the existing trade union laws because every union is defeating them.
‘They want to make the action that comes out of ballots virtually illegal. I don’t think it’s going to work. I don’t think they understand what they’re doing.
‘They keep quoting what goes on in France and Spain and all the rest of the world. These laws have never been enforced in those countries and they’re not enacted in the same way.’
Hitting out at Tory Minister Grant Shapps he continued: ‘Grant Shapps has shown he’s incompetent. He couldn’t run the transport department for three years, and now he is trying to run the business department.
‘I think he will fail again. And I think these laws will be a failure. Working people are not going to put up with an oppression of their rights and will fight back. We will oppose it in Parliament and we will oppose it on the streets and in the workplace.
‘Grant Shapps doesn’t respect the right to strike. He wants to make the strikes ineffective. I don’t believe him at all. I don’t think he’s genuine. I think he just wants to suppress the trade unions.
‘What I think he will do is entrench industrial disputes. So you’ll have longer periods of power for strikes. What he will end up doing is constricting labour.
‘They’re going to make us name people to go to work when we’ve had lawful ballots. That’s a ridiculous situation in a free society, that you can be compelled to break your own union’s industrial action mandate, which you may have voted for.
‘So he doesn’t respect democracy. We’re a democratic society. We’re democratic unions. And because he’s lost the argument about these disputes, rather than trying to resolve them he’s trying to crush the unions, and you’ve been seeking legal action.
On the steps the RMT is taking to fight the laws he added: ‘We’ve taken legal advice. We’ve got QCs that have told us what they’ve got in mind.
‘I think we should defeat it before it comes to fruition. Once it’s drafted, we’ll fight it in Parliament.
‘We’ll fight it out in the streets if we can get some mass demonstrations going. We need the entire trade union movement and all democrats in this country to stand up against this suppression of human rights.”
The new anti-union legislation is expected to be published next week, with MPs debating it for the first time the week after. It will apply in England, Scotland and Wales – but not in Northern Ireland.