For International Workers’ Day (1 May) 2020, Free Our Unions is calling on labour movement activists and supporters to raise their voice – in support of workers taking action in the crisis to stand up for their rights and for safety, and for the abolition of the anti-union laws which constrain such action.
We say:
“Support workers’ action for rights and safety”
“Free our unions: repeal all anti-strike laws”
Please use our poster or make your own to take a photo and send it to us to share on social media. In advance of May Day, on May Day, or after is fine.
You can download the poster to print as a pdf here, as a jpg here, or as a Word file here. If you want us to post you one or more copies, email freeourunions@gmail.com with your address, specifying how many you want and A3 or A4. Or, if you’re feeling creative, make your own poster.
Please send pictures to freeourunions@gmail.com, including information on who you are to go with your photo.
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Background:
The anti-trade union laws require postal ballots for strikes to be legal. Under the lockdown, the organisations that administer these ballots cannot guarantee their functioning. So even the heavily limited right to strike we have in normal times has gone. In any case, confronted by urgent issues of safety, workers cannot wait to go through a lengthy bureaucratic procedure before taking action.
From the NHS to libraries, from Royal Mail to construction, many groups of workers have simply walked out to defend rights and safety – either using health and safety rules or simply defying legal restrictions.
We must support these actions, and at the same time demand that the anti-union laws which often make it complicated and difficult to go on strike are scrapped – all of them. Unions and the Labour Party must start seriously fighting for this.
Help push this struggle forward by taking a photo and sending it to us at Free Our Unions.
Free Our Unions 