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UNIONS vowed as one to defy the Tories’ Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act in the first TUC special congress since 1982 at the weekend.
Congress voted unanimously that unions would refuse to tell their members to cross picket lines — a commitment not to comply with the repressive legislation’s diktat that unions take “reasonable steps” to ensure their members comply with work notices issued ordering named individuals to break strikes.
A general council statement specified 15 action points the entire TUC agreed to, pledging to back any worker targeted in a work notice, mount legal challenges to the new laws, and demand employers commit not to issue work notices.
Our members face serious violence, crumbling workplaces and exposure to dangerous drugs — it is outrageous we still cannot legally use our industrial muscle to fight back and defend ourselves, writes STEVE GILLAN
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
