Defend the right to strike – Build resistance to Tory attacks

Jared Wood, RMT union national executive committee (personal capacity)

The Queen’s Speech announced the new Tory government’s intention to add yet more anti-union laws to Britain’s statute books.

Just in case anyone retained any doubt as to the utter cynicism of Boris Johnson, he has presented further attacks on workers’ rights as a protection of the right to work for workers who use Britain’s railways to commute. It won’t escape the notice of those commuters that rising fares, poor reliability, old and insufficient rolling stock and overcrowding will all be allowed to continue.

The chaos of the journey to work for millions every day will still be inflicted on passengers by a privatised rail network that sucks fare revenue and public subsidies out as profit. But don’t worry, there will be a minimum service level on strike days.

You may wonder why the bosses could possibly need another anti-union law when the Communication Workers Union ballot can already be ruled illegal. Just before Christmas, 97% of postal workers voted to strike on a turnout of 75%, but still this wasn’t good enough for the courts.

The new proposal in the Queen’s Speech is directed specifically at the transport union RMT. It would compel workers in the rail sector to provide a minimum service level (yet to be specified) during strikes. This would effectively remove the right to strike from many individuals, who would be compelled to work during a legal strike.

Beacon

RMT has acted as a beacon for the trade union movement in recent years. While the leaderships of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and many individual unions have cowered behind the “dented shield” – waiting and waiting for a Labour government to come along and rescue them – RMT has fought a tenacious industrial battle to defend the role of guards on trains, resist cuts, and defend jobs, pay and conditions.

Any new minimum service levels will be used as another line of attack by the government and privatised rail industry against RMT.

Of course, implementing this new proposed legislation will be a great deal more difficult than announcing it. It could also lead to much longer strikes. If only half the workforce can strike on a given day, then they may decide to strike for twice as many days. The law could also be a spur to some workers taking unofficial action that is neither organised nor sanctioned by any particular union.

But the trade union movement cannot sit back and allow this legislation to pass into law. It carries an enormous threat to the ability of unions to take effective action in defence of members. The Spanish state already has similar laws, and when workers at Barcelona airport went on strike last year, the courts ordered them to maintain a 90% service!

RMT and the train drivers’ union, Aslef, need to stand together against these proposals. General union Unite also represents significant sections of rail workers, mainly in engineering functions; they too must be involved in resisting the new law.

It is also obvious that, should this law be established, then it will be broadened out to all essential public service workers, and then to the whole of the trade union movement. If rail unions have to ensure a minimum service level imposed by a court, then it is inconceivable that the same requirement would not be imposed on firefighters, NHS workers, teachers, civil servants and others.

The TUC should now immediately convene a conference of trade unions to organise a collective fightback against the new proposals. This should include building towards general strike action should the proposals be made law. Rallies should be held in all major cities, and a national demo organised.

There will be scepticism from many workers that the TUC will carry out such a fight, given the record of the TUC on resisting previous anti-union laws. But we should not allow them to just continue in their capitulation.

An alliance of the willing is needed urgently. Those unions who are prepared to fight should collaborate to campaign for a real resistance within the TUC, but also to campaign and strike together whether the TUC acts or not.

There is no time to waste. We must not wait until minimum service levels become law to fight them.

Build union resistance to Tory attacks

Rob Williams, Socialist Party industrial organiser

The mask has slipped – almost the first act of Boris Johnson’s new government was to use the Queen’s Speech to prepare new anti-trade union legislation. So much for Boris trying to portray himself as pro-worker. It’s the same old story, or rather same old Tory!

This will be a government of and for the rich, against the working class. Like all Tories, Johnson recognises the power of the unions. With over six million members it is still potentially the most powerful force in society – as long as it is mobilised to fight.

The Tory government has got the unions in its sights, starting with the transport unions and especially the RMT transport union.

The RMT has shown over the last three decades that militant trade unionism wins for workers and therefore attracts new members. Under the late general secretary Bob Crow, the union grew by 40% on this record of action. Such an increase across the union movement would see it rise by two-and-a-half million members!

Over the last few years, the RMT has been to the fore in fighting to stop train companies getting rid of guards. In December, RMT members on South Western Railway took 27 days of action in what is a strike over passenger safety.

As commuters usher in the New Year and are hit with yet another fares rise, they should see that their best protection for their income and safety are the rail workers and their unions. Johnson, however, is firmly on the side of the privateer bosses, who have collectively put £4.4 billion into the pockets of their shareholders in the last ten years.

Right to strike threat

The right to strike is on the line. Royal Mail workers smashed the undemocratic voting thresholds in the most recent anti-union law, brought in by the discredited former Tory PM and fellow Old Etonian David Cameron.

The Trade Union Congress was found wanting then, with not one national demonstration being organised against the Trade Union Act 2016. Neither the postal workers’ union, CWU, (currently in dispute with Royal Mail bosses over widespread management bullying, and attacks on workers’ terms and conditions) or the RMT, or any other union, must be left to fight alone as it will be yours next.

We can win and push back austerity, zero-hour contracts, attacks on pensions, and so on, if the union movement fights together.

The French bosses thought president Macron was invincible, yet the current strikes against his pension attacks is now the longest for 50 years – since the revolutionary general strike of 1968.

If we mobilise, we can take on Boris and defeat him and his Tory government.