THE Employment Rights Act doesn’t go far enough and a mass campaign to abolish all anti-union laws should be a labour movement priority, Miners’ Gala marras heard on Friday night.

General Federation of Trade Unions general secretary Gawain Little called for action to force “a repeal of all the anti-trade union laws, to return to us the right to secondary picketing, solidarity action — the right to strikes over what are deemed political issues.”

He paid tribute to Strike Map, praising the mega-pickets it organised to support the year-long strike by Birmingham bin workers — with thousands of people from across the country joining in.

“You can’t legislate solidarity out of action,” he noted, saying the mega-pickets were an original way to organise around existing anti-union laws.

Public & Commercial Services union general secretary Fran Heathcote said the wins in the Employment Rights Act should not be underestimated, noting that 50 per cent turnout thresholds for strike ballots will be removed this year and electronic balloting legalised from as soon as next month, making it easier and cheaper for unions to engage with members.

“Why are we asking for more?” she asked the joint Institute of Employment Rights-Campaign for Trade Union Freedom fringe meeting. “Because over the past 40 years workers’ share [of national income] has shrunk and money has been diverted upwards to bosses.”

The only way to address this, she argued, was through sectoral collective bargaining — which the Act only introduces for two sectors: social care and teaching assistants.

“In the Civil Service we have over 200 sets of pay negotiations every year for the same pot of money,” she pointed out, calling on the government to show which side it is on by restoring collective bargaining in its “own back yard.”

Lord John Hendy KC said he hoped a new Labour leader would be readier to stand by the party’s New Deal for Workers policy than the outgoing Keir Starmer regime.

“How can it possibly be that a government with a majority of 174 … allowed [its own policy] to be watered down and for major parts of it to be excluded altogether?” he asked.