Dozens of trade union branches are now backing the Free Our Unions campaign, alongside a number of local Labour Party branches. Please pass our motion and get your branch on board with the campaign!
Motion for trade union branches (May 2023)
FREE OUR UNIONS – RESIST NEW ANTI-UNION LAWS, REPEAL EXISTING ONES
This branch notes and endorses the call by the Fire Brigades Union for the TUC to organise a national demonstration to stop the Tories’ “Strikes (Minimum Service Levels)” Bill, and for an emergency TUC congress to discuss this fight. We believe that if the TUC does not act, the FBU should take a lead in bringing together unions and sections of the labour movement to organise a national demo and a labour movement conference to oppose Bill.
This branch notes that Britain already has what Tony Blair once proudly called “the most restrictive union laws in the western world.” New restrictions will further criminalise effective trade unionism. The whole labour movement must resist. That resistance must not only focus on threatened new laws, but must demand the abolition of all existing restrictions on the right to organise and strike, and their replacement with a positive charter of union rights.
This branch therefore resolves [number as appropriate]:
– [Where unions have existing policy to organise action: To request that our NEC urgently enacts existing policy to organise action, including national demonstrations, against anti-union and anti-strike laws]
– [Where unions do not have existing policy to support a national demonstration: To support calls for a national demonstration and emergency conference on this issue, and work with other unions to organise this]
– To produce a briefing for members explaining the threatened new laws, and the scale of existing restrictions
– To hold a meeting to plan action around this issue, inviting speakers from campaigns active on the issue, including Free Our Unions
– Support the Free Our Unions campaign and donate £[…]
– To work with others, via the local Trades Council [where possible/appropriate] to organise wider local campaigning, including plans for direct action such as demonstrations
– [For Labour-affiliated unions: To raise this issue within Labour Party structures, demanding Labour commits to repealing the laws when next in government, in accordance with its conference policy]
Free Our Unions 