RIGHT TO STRIKE

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: february 2023 :: RMTnews 4 Trades unionists from across the labour movement have launched protests against the Minimum Service Levels bill currently being proposed by the Tory government. Under the bill Secretary of State for Business Grant Shapps would have the power to decide statutory minimum service levels for a string of public services and to sack those who did not comply. It would allow an employer to give a ‘work notice’ to trade unions that levels of service under minimum service regulations are to apply in relation to strike action. This work notice would identify persons, regardless of union membership, required to work during the strike in order to secure minimum service levels and specify the work required to be carried out by them during any strike action. There is apparently no limit on the factors that Shapps would be permitted to take into account in doing so. The only requirement is to consult ‘such persons as they consider appropriate’ before making the regulations which can even include a consultation before the Act comes into force. RMT general secretary Mick Lynch told a demonstration outside Downing Street last month that the government had decided to bring in this anti-worker law because it wanted to make effective strike action illegal in Britain. He said that the bill was “an attack on human rights and civil liberties which we will oppose in the courts, parliament and the workplace. "Trades unionists and democrats from across the political spectrum must come together in the interests of civil liberties and human rights to oppose these measures. "This violation of democratic norms and values will be strongly opposed by the RMT and the entire labour movement, in Parliament, the courts and the workplace, if it is put on the statute books,” he said. Labour MP Bell Ribeiro- Addy MP, who came straight from Parliament, said that the Bill’s introduction in the Commons had been “absolutely disgraceful”. “All we heard from the minister was lies, deceit and utter contempt for our public service workers,” she told protesters. Labour shadow business secretary Angela Rayner responded in the House of Commons by asking how Grant Shapps could seriously think that sacking thousands of key workers wouldn’t plunge public services further into crisis? “The transport secretary admits it won’t work, the education secretary doesn’t RIGHT TO STRIKE Tories launch serious attack on trade union rights with proposals to enforce minimum service levels