UK Trade Unions Claim Proposed Laws on Strikes Are ‘Undemocratic, Unworkable’

But Grant Shapps says legislation would introduce 'minimum safety levels'

Members of the Public and Commercial Services union on the picket line outside Birmingham Airport in England on Dec. 23, 2022. (Jacob King/PA Media)

The new general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has described legislation to curb strikes—which was put before Parliament by the government on Tuesday—as “undemocratic, unworkable, and almost certainly illegal.”

The new laws would force ambulance crews, firefighters, and railway workers to provide a minimum level of service during industrial action.

Business Secretary Grant Shapps unveiled the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill legislation in Parliament and said it would bring Britain into line with many European countries which already have limits to strike action.

Shapps said the new law would end the “postcode lottery” which occurred during last month’s ambulance strike, when the striking unions were providing a certain minimum level of service in one part of the country but not in another area.

At the time the Health Secretary Steve Barclay accused the Unite, Unison, and GMB unions of refusing to work with the government at the national level to set out plans for dealing with medical emergencies during the strike.

Shapps told Times Radio on Tuesday, “I don’t think any civilised society should have a situation where we can’t get agreement to, for example, have an ambulance turn up on a strike day for the most serious of all types of ailments.”

Earlier Shapps said the ambulance union leaders had refused to agree a minimum level of service, unlike nurses.

Grant Shapps speaking to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester in October 2021. (Peter Byrne/PA)

“That’s why today I’ll introduce minimum safety levels and service levels for key public services to make sure that we don’t end up in a situation where people’s lives are at risk, while still respecting the right to withdraw labour and strike,” he told Sky News.

But TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said: “This legislation would mean that, when workers democratically vote to strike, they can be forced to work and sacked if they don’t comply. That’s undemocratic, unworkable, and almost certainly illegal.”

“Let’s be clear. If passed, this bill will prolong disputes and poison industrial relations—leading to more frequent strikes.”

The bill’s introduction comes 24 hours after Barclay and several other government ministers met with union leaders in a bid to defuse strike action planned for later this month.

The GMB union said ambulance workers would go on strike again on Wednesday unless a “significant” pay offer was made by the government.

GMB National Secretary Rachel Harrison told the BBC: “Yesterday was a real shift, because there was that willingness from the secretary of state and from his team to listen to us, to talk to us about pay for next year specifically, but unfortunately the meeting wasn’t progressive enough for us to be able to suspend the strike action tomorrow because no offer has yet still been made.”

‘Attack on Britain’s COVID Heroes’

The General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, Matt Wrack, said: “This is an attack on all workers, including key workers, who kept our public services going during the pandemic. It’s an attack on Britain’s COVID heroes and on all workers. We need a mass movement of resistance to this authoritarian attack.”

Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham said, “This bill is another dangerous gimmick from a government that should be negotiating to resolve the current crisis they have caused.”

Frank Ward, interim general secretary at the TSSA transport union, said, “Our union totally opposes this move to bring in what amounts to further draconian anti-strike laws which are a clear attack on the rights of working people in our country.”

British workers do not have a definitive right to withdraw their labour but a succession of laws over the last 150 years has sought to regulate strikes.

The 1871 Trade Union Act legalised unions and allowed them to represent workers across most industries, and in 1898 Welsh coal miners flexed their muscles when they went out on strike in a bid to remove a controversial sliding wage scale.

Trade unions became stronger and stronger throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and in 1972 the Conservative government of Edward Heath suffered a humiliating defeat when a national strike by miners—accompanied by flying pickets who closed down coking plants such as Saltley in Birmingham—led to power cuts and the introduction of a state of emergency and ended with a 21 percent pay rise.

Two years later, infuriated by strikes, Heath called a snap election and asked voters, “Who governs Britain?”

The Tories lost that election and a decade later, after defeating another national miners’ strike, Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government introduced legislation which restricted the right to strike and banned flying pickets.

In 2016 David Cameron’s Conservative government further restricted strikes when it introduced legislation which meant that unions could not go on strike unless at least 50 percent of members vote in the ballot on industrial action.

The Trade Union Act 2016 also insisted that in important public services “a trade union must obtain the support of at least 40 percent of all union members entitled to vote in the ballot.”

PA Media contributed to this report.