The European Court of Human Rights may have a mandate to intervene against the Conservatives’ anti-strike proposals
The Tories’ Trade Union Bill is an extraordinary attack on the human rights of working people. Only Labour can stop it, but some in the party will fear a confrontation over workers’ rights. It’s vital we don’t let that fear get the better of us.
The Trade Union Bill will make strikes for public sector workers impossible unless 40 per cent of workers eligible to vote favour industrial action and the voter turnout reaches 50 per cent.
In addition, in the unlikely event of a strike, the plans would make it easier for employers to hire agency staff, making industrial action ineffective and making collective rights redundant.
It’s ironic that a Tory government that won only 37 per cent of the vote wishes to implement such a law.
If democracy in the United Kingdom was held to the same standards, no government would be elected. The Conservatives won the most recent election with 37 per cent of the vote and in 2010 won 36.1 per cent and managed to form government.
Yet the same percentages would not provide a mandate for public sector strikes. This intrinsically flaws the proposal.
As well as its hypocrisy, the proposed law will severely undermine human rights, specifically freedom of association. By limiting public sector strikes, the government will be preventing the universal right to freedom of association, a right closely linked to freedom of expression.
This will compromise the right of a group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members.
The state is obligated to protect the right to strike and collective bargaining in order to allow for the protection of workers. The right to strike and collective bargaining maintain safe working conditions, fair wages and healthy working hours. These are things that benefit us all.
Labour should always be a broad church, but we should also continue in our tradition of fighting to preserve the protection of workers when they are at their most vulnerable.
Workers’ rights are human rights and this is just another proposal for legislation that is consistent with the Conservative’s anti-human rights agenda. In fact, it is very much linked to the Tories’ attack on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Human Rights Act.
The ECHR protects the rights of workers under freedom of association. In a case a few years ago involving the Turkish government’s ban on public sector strikes, the European Court of Human Rights used the ECHR to declare the law incompatible with Turkey’s human rights obligations.
The European Court of Human Rights may therefore have a mandate to intervene against the Conservatives’ anti-strike proposals. Aware of this, the Conservatives have developed what looks like a deliberate and calculated plan to assault workers’ rights and undermine the ECHR at the same time.
The Labour Party must not be afraid to challenge the Tories’ or appear to be seen too left-wing on the issue of human rights. Regardless of the election defeat or a future policy supporting aspiration, Labour must maintain its position to protect the fundamental human rights of workers in the United Kingdom.
Steven Male is a Campaigns Volunteer with the Labour Campaign for Human Rights
75 Responses to “Trade Union Bill: another calculated attack on workers’ rights”
gunnerbear
I’m a TU member – have been for decades and I think it is a brilliant idea to put turnover limits in place. Why? Because it stops moronic TU leaders confusing their political aims with the aims and wishes of their members and more importantly it makes HMG look like morons as well. HMG has said that the vote must be ‘X’ and ‘Y’ per cent in terms of turnout etc. Great…..because if the issue is serious enough – especially in the public sector – the turnout and ‘Yes’ vote will be overwhelming making the SoS look like a tool and also hammer home time after time after time, just how much of a ‘mandate’ HMG has. Why did I mention HMG – because the vast, vast, majority of strikes take place in the public sector – a sector cushioned from some of the realities of life in the private sector where if you wreck the company by striking for a b*****t reason you’re out of a job. I know more than a few on the Right who are extremely nervous about the long term impact of these proposals – far fewer strikes and industrial action – but when strikes do occur – they’ll be big, long lasting and well supported. And there is no way HMG can keep the NHS or schools going with agency staff and no Headteacher would take the risk of non-ECRB’d individuals teaching or managing lessons (for example).
gunnerbear
The workers working for NR are public sector skilled workers – as such I’d offer them a no-strike deal underwritten by an IPRB just as HM Forces have. The public sector has better perks because it doesn’t pay for it themselves – they soak the private sector for them. In the private sector we have a thing called competition – often from around the world – so our costs e.g wages and company pensions can’t get too high or no matter how skilled you are the company goes under, chopped by cheaper competition. That’s why some in the private sector can’t be doing with whining types in the public sector who have their pay and pensions underwritten by the private sector i.e the taxpayers – which is another reason I’m all for the new legislation.
gunnerbear
You’d better introduce massive protectionist barriers then if you want to ramp up UK wages in the face of intense, cheap global competition.
gunnerbear
“striking is the last thing most of the members want.” Respectfully, f**kin’ balls – I know people who work in the public sector and know that striking is effectively a no-risk business in the public sector. If the NUT leadership for example want to call a strike then they’ll need to convince a huge block of their members to vote for it – and being a teacher, given pay. pensions and time off, isn’t a ‘bad screw’. Bit different to the private sector where industrial action can sink a company.
gunnerbear
It might be a ‘last resort’ in the private sector but the public sector strike at the drop of a hat – because the public sector knows it is a no-risk business striking in the public sector. Try striking in the private sector and you can rapidly find yourself out of a job – not quite the same thing at all.