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The attacks on collective bargaining run against mainstream economic guidance
The Transport Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill is just the latest extreme blow to union power that comes without any offer of alternative input from workers – this flies in the face of all conventional sense, write KEITH EWING and LORD JOHN HENDY KC

THE response of the Tory government (whoever leads it) to the cost-of-living catastrophe facing the working class is not to control prices, tax the profiteering energy companies, or take steps to increase incomes.

No. Instead, it published last Friday the Transport Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill. This will impose yet further restrictions on the capacity of workers to protect their wages by taking strike action where persuasion fails.

The new law is likely to be followed by legislation requiring a union to ballot its members on strike on every offer made by the employer in the course of negotiations.

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