“How he goes on with one breath thanking nurses to sacking nurses"
Labour’s Deputy Leader Angela Rayner has been praised for tearing into the government yesterday, after the Tories’ anti-strike legislation was brought to Parliament.
The Minimum Service Bill, which will empower employers to sue unions and sack staff in crucial sectors if minimum service levels aren’t maintained has been slammed as an attack on the fundamental right to strike and as a draconian piece of legislation.
The government has gone from clapping key workers to now wanting to sack them for demanding better pay and conditions.
Rayner was praised for her comments, as she told the House the anti-strike laws were ‘insulting and utterly stupid’.
She told the Commons: “So much for levelling up workers rights. Where is their promised code of conduct on the fire and rehire, long abandoned employment bill that they promised to tackle insecure work.
“How he goes on with one breath thanking nurses to sacking nurses. Not just insulting but utterly stupid. There’s no common sense about this at all, he says he recognises pressures faced by key workers but he knows the NHS cannot find the nurses that they need to work on the ward. He knows the trains don’t run even on non-strike days because of shortage of staff.
“So how can he seriously think that sacking thousands of key workers won’t just plunge our public services into further crisis. The Transport Secretary admits it won’t work, the Education Secretary doesn’t want it and his own government’s impact assessment finds that it will lead to more strikes and staff shortage.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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