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Junior doctor members of the British Medical Association (BMA) during a rally outside Downing Street in London, at the start a four-day strike amid the bitter dispute with the government over pay, August 11, 2023
THE TUC is mounting an international challenge to “unworkable” Tory anti-strike legislation, which makes Britain even more of a pariah than it already was, the union body said today.
It’s challenging the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act through the United Nations’ Geneva-based workers’ rights arm, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and is being backed by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), which represents 45 million trade unionists.
The ETUC said anti-union laws already make it harder for working people in Britain to take strike action than in any other Western European country.
The Bill addresses some exploitation but leaves trade unions heavily regulated, most workers without collective bargaining coverage, and fails to tackle the balance of power that enables constant mutation of bad practice, write KEITH EWING and LORD JOHN HENDY KC
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
