RMT London Transport Region reaffirms stance on anti-strike laws

The London Transport Region of the RMT union, which organises workers employed by Transport for London, London Underground, and subsidiary/outsourced companies, has passed a new resolution on fighting the anti-union laws.

Part of the resolution commits the region to supporting the new initiative, launched by the CWU Greater London Combined (telecoms) branch and supported by Free Our Unions, which aims to coordinate union activity to pressure Labour to go further on repealing anti-strike laws.

Free our unions: repeal all the anti-union laws

“New Labour tried to present their reforms as a final settlement. We have to categorically reject that. Our goal is to repeal the anti-union laws of the ’80s.” – Angela Rayner, 2014

Notes

1. Long-standing RMT policy supporting the abolition of all legal restrictions on unions’ right to organise and strike.

2. The likelihood of a Labour government.

3. That in discussion on the parameters of Labour’s “New Deal for Working People”, the pivotal issue of repealing the anti-trade union laws has tended to get lost.

4. Labour is committing (at the moment) only to repealing the Trade Union Act 2016 and the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023. These are only the latest in numerous anti-strike and anti-union laws going back to 1980.

5. That TUC Congress, many individual union conferences and Labour Party conference have voted repeatedly for repeal of all anti-union laws.

Believes

1. The trade union movement’s collective response and activity on this issue has so far been inadequate. The sole national demonstration on the issue was called in Cheltenham, rather than London, and was under-resourced in terms of mobilisation.

2. To resist anti-strike laws under the current Tory government, and/or to force significant concessions from an incoming Labour government, a much more active, visible, assertive campaign is necessary.

3. The whole labour movement, including unions like ours which are not affiliated to the Labour Party, must mount a combative campaign, now, to demand an incoming Labour government repeal all anti-union laws. We must not adopt a “wait-and-see” approach, but rather campaign assertively, now, to demand Labour goes further.

Resolves

1. To call on Labour to commit to repealing all anti-union and anti-strike laws, back to the 1980 Employment Act (and including the Public Order Act 2023), and replace them with strong positive legal rights for workers and unions, including strong rights to strike and picket.

2. To add our name to the statement along these lines initiated by CWU Greater London Combined telecoms branch (https://bit.ly/scrapantiunionlaws).

3. To write to CWU Greater London Combined branch proposing a joint planning meeting with a view to organising a demonstration in London.

4. To invite a speaker from the Free Our Unions campaign.

General election: organise to push Labour to repeal anti-strike laws

With Labour likely to form the next government, the wider labour movement must push the Labour Party to go further on repealing legal restrictions on the right to organise and strike.

For the appeal / statement referred to in this article, click here.

By Sacha Ismail

Debates around Labour’s “New Deal for Working People”, including possible attempts to further water it down, have tended to touch only lightly on the pivotal issue of anti-union / anti-strike laws.

While representing the first rolling back of anti-union laws since the 1970s, the proposals would simultaneously leave the great bulk of the Thatcherite anti-union laws of the 1980s-90s in place.

The latest version, put up on Labour’s website towards the end of May 2024, makes the following commitments:

“Over the past 14 years, the Conservatives have consistently attacked rights at work, including through the Trade Union Act 2016, the Minimum Service Levels (Strikes) Bill and the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses (Amendment) Regulations 2022 – all of which Labour will repeal to give trade unions the freedom to organise, represent and negotiate on behalf of their workers…

“The law governing trade union statutory ballots is antiquated and fails to recognise the huge steps trade unions have made to engage and communicate with members. The current system of only allowing statutory trade union ballots via the post significantly impacts turnout and hampers democratic engagement with members. Labour will allow modern, secure, electronic balloting and workplace ballots…”

If this is meaningfully carried out, it would mean reversing the laws governing industrial action to where they were in 2015, before the extremely serious attacks of 2016 and 2023, and modifying earlier anti-union laws by removing the insistence on postal ballots specifically. This is no small matter.

The labour movement should mobilise to ensure these commitments, along with others in the New Deal document, are carried out as fast and in as thoroughgoing a form as possible.

However, in terms of anti-strike restrictions – as in other areas – that is nowhere enough. It means accepting the core of the Thatcherite drive to restrict trade union freedom.

Even a solid and better-than-expected implementation of the New Deal would mean:

• A continued ban on solidarity action, strikes and industrial action in support of other workers
• A continued ban on strikes and industrial action for anything other than narrowly defined “trade dispute” issues
• Heavy state regulation of when and by what processes workers can decide to strike etc
• Heavy state regulation of union’s internal procedures
• Heavy limits on picketing

Whether or to what extent we can successfully challenge these kinds of restrictions, in the current political climate, remains to be seen. But we should try.

That is why trade union organisations have launched an appeal calling for repeal of all anti-trade union / anti-strike laws and their replace with strong legal rights for workers and unions – including strong rights to strike and picket.

The statement was initiated by CWU Greater London Combined (telecoms) branch. At its executive meeting this month the Bakers’ Union (BFAWU) took a decision to back the statement and the initiative.

We are calling for trade union organisations at every level to add their names and to get in touch to coordinate campaigning. You can do so here.

Court win on right to strike

By Janine Booth, Free Our Unions supporter

The UK Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday 17 April that UK law allowing employers to discipline (but not sack) workers for striking is in conflict with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The judges stated that, “If employees can only take strike action by exposing themselves to detrimental treatment, the right dissolves” and added that “it is hard to see what pressing social need is served by a general rule that has the effect of excluding protection from sanctions short of dismissal for taking lawful strike action”. 

The ECHR is incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998. The usual course following a judgment such as this is that the UK government will table a ‘statutory instrument’ to Parliament to correct the conflict – in other words, to specify in UK law that it is unlawful for employers to discipline workers in any way for taking part in official industrial action.

However, it is possible that a Tory government worrying that its days are numbered may decide not to do this – as there is no legal requirement for it to do so – or may decide instead to repeal the ECHR provisions or even the whole Human Rights Act. Right-wingers have frequently called for this, often on the basis of spurious (and racist) arguments about ‘foreign criminals’.

Until UK law is amended to comply with today’s judgment, employers are still allowed under UK law to discipline strikers, although any striker disciplined can take a case to the European Court of Human Rights. However, this is a lengthy process. Today’s judgment concludes a case that has taken four years.

Trade union Unison took the case to employment tribunal in 2020 on behalf of its member, care worker Fiona Mercer. The union won the initial court case, but while the employer was willing to accept the result and not appeal, the Tory government appealed and succeeded in overturning the tribunal decision. Today’s judgment overturns the appeal result and restores the original decision.

Unison reported that the Supreme Court judges were “scathing of the government’s failure to provide the minimum protection UK workers should have been granted”.

Fiona had been involved in a dispute her employer, north-west-based charity AFG, over its plans to cut sleep-over payments.

UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea said: “This is the most important industrial action case for decades. It’s a victory for every employee who might one day want to challenge something bad or unfair their employer has done.

Fiona Mercer said: “I’m delighted at today’s outcome. Although it won’t change the way I was treated, it means irresponsible employers will now think twice before behaving badly towards their unhappy staff. If they single strikers out for ill-treatment, they’ll now be breaking the law.”


The full text can be found here.

Leeds Council opposes anti-strike laws

Leeds City Council has passed a resolution opposing the government’s “Minimum Service Levels” Act. Although the resolution stops short of an explicit commitment to never issue work notices, it takes a strong stance in favour of the right to strike.

The text of the resolution is below, and available on the council website here. Leeds joins other Labour councils, including Sheffield and Islington, in taking such a stance. StrikeMap and the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom are currently running an online campaign encouraging people to write to their local representatives to demand councils make “no work notices” pledges.

That Council believes that the right to strike is a fundamental British freedom and believes that the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 is just the latest direct attack on this freedom.

Council regrets the over the past 14 years the Government have continually eroded pay, and to an even greater degree when inflation hit a 41 year high of 11.1%.

Council regrets the Government’s failure to deal with the cost-of-living crisis and failure to outlaw poor employment practices, which Council believes have caused recent strike action.  Council further regrets this legislation as an attempt to shift the blame onto ordinary workers who have resorted to striking to achieve fair pay and dignity at work.

Council further believes that the regime created by the Strikes (Minimum Service Level) Act 2023 is both unworkable and unnecessary and is an attack on the freedoms of working people in Leeds.

Council resolves to request a paper to Executive Board to consider these issues further and calls on the Government to repeal anti-trade union legislation.

Write to your councillor to demand “no work notices”

The Campaign for Trade Union Freedom, Strike Map, and a number of other organisations have partnered to launch a new initiative encouraging activists to write to their local councillors to demand councils commit not to issuing work notices.

Some councils have already passed policies opposing the Minimum Service Levels Acts, and the Scottish and Welsh devolved governments have made “no work notices” commitments. One Academy trust has also committed not to issue work notices.

A sustained campaign of pressure could force similar commitments from other employers, including local authorities. You can use the campaign’s online tool to write to your councillors here.

Largest Academy Trust rules out “work notices”: make others do the same!

By an NEU activist in a United Learning School

Schools Week has announced that United Learning (UL), the largest Academy Trust in England, operating 89 schools and employing 7,000 staff, has stated it will not use the Minimum Service Law (MSL) to issue “work notices” instructing staff to strike-break.

The Trust is quoted as saying that use of the law would “damage industrial relations and harm [their] image as an employer”. Use of the law would make it “impossible to retain the goodwill and discretionary effort of staff; harder to retain staff; and the reputational impact would make it harder to attract new staff… In the end, this would have a more negative impact on children and parents than the strikes themselves.”

The Trust describes the MSL as “wrong in principle and in its details likely to be self-defeating in practice.”

Employers are not required to issue work orders under the MSL. UL state it is “inconceivable that any employer will in fact choose to do so.”

That is, in the context of schooling in 2024, a rational management policy and a damning rebuke to the government. UL adds that the idea of a minimum service level was not one that could be “coherently applied to schools”.

A National Education Union (NEU) official informed me that: “The union did not have a role to play in UL’s MSL position and we have not been privy to their reasoning. As far as we are aware they are the first Trust to make this commitment.”

It is essential that the NEU now press every one of the Academy Trusts to make a similar commitment. Activists and reps must not leave this work to officials and union leaders, this is work we should press for right now, using the precedent created by UL as a lever to get similar pledges across the sector.

After Cheltenham demo: keep up campaigning, build for open defiance

By a Free Our Unions supporter

Thousands of trade unionists marched in Cheltenham today (27 January), to mark the 40th anniversary of the Thatcher government’s ban on unions at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and protest contemporary anti-strike laws, including the new Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act.

That the demonstration took place at all is positive. For the trade union movement to mobilise as the trade union movement, bringing together unions from across the economy, is important in itself. The Cheltenham demonstration must be the launchpad for an ongoing campaign against anti-strike legislation that seeks to build open defiance.

Further demonstrations must take place in London. Actions elsewhere in the country are important, but visible protest in the capital and principal seat of power are essential. And unions must step up their mobilisation. Many marchers reported their unions’ mobilising efforts as sluggish, reflected in a fairly small turnout which had mostly drifted away before the rally had finished.

At that rally, there were stirring words in many union leaders’ speeches. Unite’s Sharon Graham gestured towards defiance, invoking the slogan of the 1921 Poplar Labour councillors’ rates rebellion to declare “it’s better to break the law than break the poor.” The RMT’s Mick Lynch reminded the crowd that “the official position of the TUC is for non-compliance.” The NEU’s Daniel Kebede said that, whilst Labour’s commitment to repeal the Minimum Service Levels Act was welcome, it must be a “first step”, and that unions must push Labour to go further and repeal all legal restrictions on the right to organise and strike.

But Lynch was also on the mark when he opened his speech by promising the dwindling crowd that he would be brief, as “no-one wants to hear a load of general secretaries waffling on”. Unfortunately, and whilst there were some rank-and-file voices on the platform, that is mostly what the rally consisted of. And with few real signs of unions using their resources to generate ongoing campaigning, involving their grassroots members, it is hard to see even the better speeches as much more than hot air.

Where defiance was referred to, it was often posed as something that would happen in the event that a worker was sacked for defying work notices. But a mass strike to protest such a sacking might well involve a confrontation with the law itself: if unions are prepared to countenance such a confrontation, why wait for anyone to be sacked? Why not go for confrontation with the law at the earliest possible point in the process, by refusing to take the “reasonable steps” called for by the Act to ensure members comply with work notices?

Undoubtedly, many union leaders are now in “get Labour into power” mode, having little strategy for winning reform beyond this. Whilst a Labour government will be preferable to a Tory one, simply waiting for it is not good enough. And, if Labour does not feel under pressure from sustained campaigning, there is a risk it will backslide on its existing commitments, and will certainly not go beyond them.

The rank-and-file conference called for in the FBU’s motion to TUC congress would be a useful place to discuss how to build the campaign we need. In the meantime, union branch meetings, Trades Councils, and campaign meetings can provide space for discussion and coordination.

Troublemakers At Work meeting on the Minimum Service Levels with Tim van Tinteren (Aslef), Emma Runswick (BMA), and Ian Allinson (Author of Workers Can Win) – 7pm, 1 February – click here for details

Free Our Unions public meeting with Matt Wrack (FBU GS and TUC President) – 7pm, 15 February – click here for details

fou-leaflet-15-february-meetingDownload

Online meeting – Thursday 15 February, 7pm: The fight for the right to strike, with Matt Wrack (FBU)

After the TUC Special Congress of 9 December, and the demonstration in Cheltenham on 27 January, what are the next steps in the fight against anti-strike laws – not only the most recent, but all existing restrictions on our right to strike?

Join Free Our Unions for a discussion meeting, with speakers including Matt Wrack, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union and President of the TUC, and more TBC.

Sign up via Eventbrite here

Log in via Zoom here

Meeting ID: 835 3823 9276
Passcode: 683428



How do we beat the Minimum Service Levels Act? Online meeting, 7pm, 1 February

The Troublemakers At Work network, founded at a conference in July co-hosted by Strike Map, NHS Workers Say No, and various other left and labour movement bodies, is hosting an online meeting at 7pm on 1 February to discuss building resistance to the Minimum Service Levels Act.

Speakers:

Tim Van Tinteren, Aslef activist
Emma Runswick, BMA
Ian Allinson, author of Workers Can Win

Chair:

Kate Edwards, NHS Workers Say No

Click here to register for the meeting on Zoom.

23 January: Lewisham unions meet to plan campaigning against anti-strike laws

Several unions in the borough of Lewisham, south London, have called a joint campaign meeting on 23 January to plan activity opposing the Tories’ new anti-strike laws.

The meeting will take place at 7pm in the Rivoli Ballroom, 350 Brockley Road, SE4 2BY. Book your place via Eventbrite here.