Public meeting: resisting the trade union bill

Sent in by Cathy Cross of PCS.

Just 2 weeks after the publication of the trade union bill 2015, trade unions, MPs and labour movement organisations are coming together at a public meeting on 29th July to review the legislation and decide how to resist.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka is among the speakers at the meeting organised by the Institute of Employment Rights (IER) together with theCampaign for Trade Union Freedom (CTUF) and the Centre for Labour and Social Studies (CLASS) at the NUT in London.

Mark will be joined by representatives from the TUC, FBU, RMT, Unite and IER experts John Hendy and Keith Ewing, together with MPs and others to determine what steps the labour movement needs to take to expose the unfair and undemocratic nature of the government’s proposals.

Mark said of the bill: “It is rank hypocrisy to introduce arbitrary restrictions on union ballots that will not apply to MPs, MEPs, councillors and police commissioners, and they will have no legitimacy when they scrape through parliament on a wafer thin majority.

“We have repeatedly asked ministers to work with us to make it easier for people to vote in workplaces and using technology, and they have refused. This is not just an attack on trade unions, it is an attack on society as a whole, as we know that weaker unions mean greater inequality.”

Blatant attack

Carolyn Jones, director of the IER said: “This is a blatant attack on the rights of workers and the freedoms of trade unions. The proposals on strike action will impose impossible thresholds for the majority of trade unions under our archaic, over restrictive and increasingly expensive balloting procedures. And for what? People increasingly understand that it is the government’s austerity-led cuts that are undermining our public services not trade union action. Yet here we have a government elected by less than 25% of the electorate imposing voting thresholds on trade unions that have already been declared in breach of international law. The ideology behind these proposals needs to be exposed and the government plans resisted.”

Time and venue: 6pm at Mander Hall, NUT, Mabledon Place, London, WC1H 9BD.

Speakers include:

• Len McCluskey, Unite
• Sarah Veale, TUC
• Mick Cash, RMT
• Dave Green, FBU
• Dave Ward, CWU
• Carolyn Jones, IER
• John McDonnell, MP
• Heather Wakefield, Unison
• Jacky Davis, Keep Our NHS Public.

Find out more on the Campaign for Union Freedom website.

Join the campaign on Twitter: #killthebill