A TORY strike ban pledge unveiled as the Toldpuddle Martyr’s festival began yesterday “will make legal strikes close to impossible,” TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said yesterday.
Ms O'Grady said that conservative plans for a strike vote turnout threshold of 50 per cent would “fundamentally shift the balance of power” behind bosses and see pay slump — even for people who have never been in a union.
And she hit back at other measures revealed in the new Tory manifesto, which was published even as thousands gathered to remember one of Britain's most historic battles for union rights at Tolpuddle in Dorset.

ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the legal case behind this weekend’s Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival and the lessons for today

As the labour movement meets to remember the Tolpuddle Martyrs, MICK WHELAN, general secretary of train drivers’ union Aslef, says it’s an appropriate moment to remind the Labour government to listen to the trade unions a little more

It is only trade union power at work that will materially improve the lot of working people as a class but without sector-wide collective bargaining and a right to take sympathetic strike action, we are hamstrung in the fight to tilt back the balance of power, argues ADRIAN WEIR