THE Tories’ anti-strike Bill is a “total dog’s dinner,” the labour movement charged today after an independent government watchdog slammed the legislation as “not fit for purpose.”
The regulatory policy committee — independent experts assembled by the Department for Business and Trade — slapped a rare “red rating” on Downing Street’s impact assessment of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, saying it “lacks sufficient evidence and is based on assumptions.”
The TUC accused ministers of keeping the nation in the dark about the “draconian” legislation, which could empower bosses or even Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch to sack workers who refuse to cross picket lines and provide an as-yet undefined service level across key sectors during walkouts.
Labour must not allow unelected members of the upper house to erode a single provision of the Employment Rights Bill, argues ANDY MCDONALD MP
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
Incoming Usdaw general secretary JOANNE THOMAS talks to Ben Chacko about workers’ rights, Labour and how to arrest the decline of the high street



