Anti-union laws

Sparks sweat on court ruling

As Solidarity went to press, electricians working for Balfour Beatty Engineering Services were still awaiting the outcome of a High Court ruling as to whether their latest strike ballot – which returned a 66% majority for action – is legal. If the Court rules in favour of the workers’ union, Unite, the earliest conceivable date for an official strike would be 21 February. A strike committee elected from BBES stewards agreed that any walkout would be followed by rolling and selective action as well as action short of a strike, including an overtime ban. The sparks’ rank-and-file committee have...

Sparks defy bosses and anti-union laws

Electricians working for Balfour Beatty Engineering Services struck on Wednesday 7 December, the date on which new contracts which could mean a 35% pay cut for many workers were introduced by seven of the construction industry’s biggest contractors. Thousands of workers across the UK took action, shutting down or disrupting work on BBES sites across the country. The strike was reported 100% solid on flagship sites like the Blackfriars station redevelopment in London. The strike was all the more significant because the workers’ union, Unite, had postponed the official action following a legal...

Replace the rule of profit with economic democracy

At the TUC Congress on 12-14 September, unions backed a demonstration at the Tory party conference in Manchester on 2 October and announced plans for a huge strike by many public-sector unions against pension cuts in November. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said that “out-of-control traders and speculators razed our economy to the ground... The less you had to do with causing the crash, the bigger the price you are having to pay”. In view of “the collapse of the economic model that politicians and policymakers have backed since the 1980s...”, “the task is to build a new economy that...

Tories trail new anti-union laws

Predictably, the mainstream press has been full of suggestions, from figures such as “Paymaster General” Francis Maude MP, that the relatively low turnouts in some of the unions’ strike ballots for June 30 somehow delegitimises their actions. Certainly, it would be preferable if our unions did not have to jump through the hoop of a bureaucratic and atomising balloting process, where workers receive their voting papers individually, at home, away from the collectivism and solidarity of the workplace. A mass workplace meeting that took a vote on whether to strike would be infinitely more...

Defend Our Right to Strike!

Unable to argue against the justice of striking to reinstate wrongfully-sacked Eammon Lynch and Arwyn Thomas, Boris Johnson and cohorts at the Standard resorted to rattling their sabres against our very right to strike.

The Mayor blasted our ‘idiotic’ two weeks of action. He is pressing the...

Unions must fight for the right to strike

Tory mayor of London Boris Johnson is campaigning for new laws to make it even more difficult for workers to defend our interests by striking. Prime minister David Cameron has said that he is "open to the idea". Tory transport minister Philip Hammond responded to the Tube drivers' recent vote to strike against victimisation of union reps by saying (5 May) that "this is only strengthening the hand of those including the Mayor who are calling for tougher industrial relations laws". Not in the rail union RMT, but elsewhere in the union movement, the word is increasingly heard from officials that...

Government will use troops to break POA strike

The British state is preparing to mobilise the army to break a prison officers' strike if they take action against the privatisation of Birmingham Prison. Commenting on the proposed privatisation, Prison Officers' Association (POA) leader Steve Gillan said "This is a disgraceful decision. Prisons should not be run for the benefit of shareholders nor for profit. The state has a duty to those imprisoned by the criminal justice system and this coalition government have betrayed loyal public sector workers for their friends in the private sector." The government has awarded the contract to run the...

A Rare Win in Court!

RMT has won a major court victory against injunctions preventing a strike on the Docklands Light Railway; and on the same day, ASLEF also won its appeal against an injunction banning strike action by its members working for London Midland.

The High Court granted the injunction to Serco...

BA ballot back on

After calling off its initial ballot over fears of a legal challenge from bosses, Unite has begun the process of re-balloting British Airways cabin crew workers for further strike action. This strike is not over the job cuts and casualisation that sparked the initial action, but against victimisations and sackings that occurred during the course of the strikes. However, a strong strike could force concessions from BA boss Willie Walsh on those issues and possibly inspire workers with the confidence for a renewed fight on the underlying issues. An activist in BASSA, the section of Unite which...

Government to set up strike-breaking unit?

The Daily Mail on 22 February carried an article reporting on “top secret” government plans to undermine strikes, with the Cabinet Office setting up a special “unit” to “prevent Britain grinding to a standstill in the event of mass public sector walkouts.” According to the Mail , the plans include developing relationships with private firms to provide scab labour to break strikes, and establishing special contingency arrangements in key areas to maintain services during any industrial action. The Mail claims that government minister Francis Maude has analysed the workforce at thousands of...

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