Last week the U.K.'s Conservative government published its new Trade Union Bill imposing draconian new laws on industrial workforce action. Under the regulations, strikes will be illegal unless 50% of those eligible to vote take part in a postal ballot, and 40% of those eligible vote “yes.” Employers would also be at liberty to replace employees on strike with temporary agency staff.
In the past, a simple majority of the people choosing to take part in a ballot sufficed, and filling workers' positions during a strike was against the law. Many in Britain were astonished at the harsh new stipulations, compared with what had been outlined in the Conservative manifesto. Trade unions were established in Britain in 1870 and have since had a huge impact on shaping employment law. So how will the new Trade Union Bill actually impact working life? And what can be done to counter it?
Trades Union Congress
The Trades Union Congress represents 54 affiliated unions across the U.K. “What the Conservative party had announced in its manifesto was already very restrictive on the right to strike,” a TUC spokesperson told Occupy.com.
“But now [that] they’re in government, their full package of legislation has added things on top of their manifesto promises that we weren’t expecting. These will further infringe on the right to strike by frustrating attempts to strike with petty rules for picketing that carry fines if you don't meet them," the spokesperson added.
"It's not so much that unionized workers' hands are tied – it's more like having to walk through thick mud full of booby traps to get there. They wouldn’t make striking impossible, but they would make the right to strike far harder to realize.”
As well as restrictions on the right to strike, the TUC is also worried about the replacement of workers with agency staff.
“One of our biggest concerns is a plan to legalize the use of agency workers to break strikes," said the spokesperson. "It’s not only an appalling attack on the right to strike, it's also an awful position to put agency workers in themselves. We can't even be sure agency workers would be told they were being brought in to replace striking workers.”
Public Sector Workers
The TUC said public services will be particularly affected by the bill.
"The right to strike is always an option of absolute last resort, but if you make the right to strike so much harder to realize, then you change the balance of power between the employer and employee," the spokesperson added, "so it becomes much harder to protect the quality of pay and conditions. That affects the quality of the job, and the more the job is downgraded, the more the quality of the service is downgraded so it has negative impacts on public service users, too.”
Firefighters are among the frontline workers who have been most chastised for withholding services because of their vital and irreplaceable role. In Essex, they recently went on strike because of a proposed 25% reduction of staff.
“Our service has suffered cut after cut,” said Alan Chinn-Shaw, secretary of the Fire Brigades Union in Essex. “These attacks are nothing less than a dismantling of the fire and rescue service in Essex. If Essex County Fire and Rescue Service are allowed to continue decimating our frontline service, the public will have to wait longer for their fire engines to arrive in an emergency. It is only a matter of time before there are casualties."
"We are campaigning on behalf of the public to maintain a fire service that is adequately funded, professional and able to respond swiftly to emergency 999 calls. Our communities deserve nothing less. We recognize that our fire service is facing budget reductions, but we believe there are alternatives to these unnecessary cuts to lifesaving front line services,” Chinn-Shaw added.
John Bangs, the former head of education at the National Union of Teachers, said striking teachers are almost as vilified as striking firefighters.
“The Conservative Party fundamentally distrusts and dislikes trade unions,” he told Occupy.com “It can see no value in them despite its protestations that it is in favor of working people. [But] the latest round of proposals go much further than setting higher hurdles for strike action. They seek to limit people's ability to collectively campaign. In short they seek to silence their voice. The proposals make a mockery of the Conservatives' aspirations for a one nation society.”
In terms of the impact on teachers specifically, he added: “Teachers join unions because teaching is not only worthwhile but tough. They want a collective professional voice which will protect them not least from a government which imposes excessive workloads and fails to understand what works in education. These new proposals will be taken personally by teachers and be seen, yet again, as the actions of a government which has no trust in them.”
Donnacha DeLong, who sits on the National Union of Journalists' executive committee, said "it's a problem that they're making people send in postal votes” in order to strike.
“If they were bringing in these percentages and allowing online voting it would be a different story," said DeLong. "The only positive I can think of is that this might encourage larger unions to engage with their members a bit more.”
Meanwhile, the face and form of union action may by necessity be transformed by the new strike laws, he added.
“I think unions need to get over the idea that a strike always involves a picket line and leaving the building. Imagine if everyone went into work and just 'occupied' their desks, making it impossible to bring in agency workers.”
Many speculate that the new anti-union laws are particularly aimed at tying the hands of the Conservatives' main opposition, the Labour Party, who are in the throes of a leadership election with a left-wing candidate vying to take the helm. Labour gains much of its funds from trade unions, so the decimation of their power would have a palpable effect on the party.
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