THE BIGGEST CRACKDOWN ON TRADE UNION RIGHTS FOR 30 YEARS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: july/august 2015 :: RMTnews 4 Tory Business secretary Sajid Javid has unveiled proposals to criminalise picketing and make it harder for workers to strike legally and for Labour to get union funding. The scale of the reforms goes far wider than the previously trailed plan for strikes to be made unlawful unless 50 per cent of those being asked to strike vote in the ballot. The Trade Union Bill will also require that at least 40 per cent of those asked to vote support the strike in most key public services. In the case of 100 workers asked to strike, the action would only be lawful if at least 50 workers voted and 40 of them backed the strike. The double threshold would have to be met in any strike called in health, education, fire, transport, border security and energy sectors – including the Border Force and nuclear decommissioning. It also proposes that ‘unlawful’ picketing should become a criminal as opposed to civil offence and new protections should be available for those workers unwilling to strike. A named official will be required to be available at all times to the police to oversee the picket including the numbers on the line, currently set at six, in an existing code of conduct. • Give employers the right to hire strike-breaking agency staff as well as require a union to give the employer at least a fortnight’s notice before the industrial action starts. • Empower the government to set a limit on the proportion of working time any public sector worker can spend on trade union duties. • Give the government certification officer powers to fine trade unions as much as £20,000 for breaches of reporting rules including an annual audit on its protests and pickets. The certification officer will also have power to initiate investigations and will in future be funded by a joint levy of unions and employers • Require a clear description of the trade dispute and the planned industrial action on the ballot paper so that all union members are clear what they are voting for. The Trade Union Co-ordinating Group, which comprises nine trade unions including RMT, said that with the current Tory government was only elected on less than 25 per cent of all those eligible to vote. TUCG dismissed the blatant ideology and hypocrisy of Tory Ministers and MPs in calling for these extensive and draconian reforms. “Attacking workers basic right to organise will lead to increasing inequality in an already unequal society,” it said. It called for unity, solidarity and co-ordination in the face of these unfair and unjust attacks on workplace rights. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that these brutal new anti-union laws were specifically targeted at members in the transport sector who have shown in recent months that they have the guts to stand up and fight for jobs, pay, services and safety. “The response of this Government mirrors the actions of hard-right regimes throughout history - shackle the unions, criminalise its members and use a raft of new laws to try and bankrupt workers' organisations. "The trade union movement must unite to fight this brutal assault on the most basic of human rights and that campaign will be taken into the communities who stand to lose access to safe and reliable services as this noose of the anti- union laws is twisted round our necks,” he said. THE BIGGEST CRACKDOWN ON TRADE UNION RIGHTS FOR 30 YEARS Trade unions condemn Tory government proposals designed to shackle workers organisations even more