Hell. Snowball. Chance.

I can see this being popular with the public. Not.

2

Actually the public have an overwhelming affinity with fairness in matters of procedure.

When firms stop strikes on a technicality people don’t first think “good a strike’s been stopped” they think “hang on, that’s just not cricket, the technicality doesn’t affect the decision.”

Blair boasted that we had some of the least Union friendly laws in Europe, its time to address that.

Not that I agree with all that Michael White says in this piece but there is a chilling warning from this Conservative government:

… and a judicial review, which eventually prevailed: the government could not overturn the 1972 Superannuation Act without primary legislation, the courts ruled. That is what the Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, now intends to do, albeit with some sweeteners that make voluntary redundo more attractive.

So in 2010 the PCS might have been wiser to settle for Labour’s terms, especially since today’s papers contain another speculative provocation, namely that ministers are in a gung-ho mood to tighten the screw still tighter on strike laws.

The huge cuts planned for public services, and the massive privatisation that will occur in the NHS, will rightly be opposed by the public service unions. The Conservatives know this. Expect them to pull a very nasty rabbit out of the hat in the autumn that will, effectively, ban public service strikes. If there is action by PCS this summer, it will play into the Conservative government’s hands by push up public opinion that new union legislation is needed. This is a government who will take any opportunity given to them, and I fear that they will remove what few union rights we still have.

“Expect them to pull a very nasty rabbit out of the hat in the autumn that will, effectively, ban public service strikes”

I supposed we shall really need to get worried when they put the Parachute Regiment on standby.

[3] Blair boasted that we had some of the least Union friendly laws in Europe, its time to address that.

Have you noticed that the majority in parliament are conservative (both big C and small c)? How can we address the anti-union laws with the Conservatives in power?

@4 Richard Blogger

The strife is going to happen anyway. How strikes and other actions play in the public eye is largely down to how Labour respond. Shall we have another Kinnockite back-stabbing or will the new leader stand up for the workers?

To maintain order, the government may need to consider creating the equivalent in Britain of the CRS in France:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnies_R%C3%A9publicaines_de_S%C3%A9curit%C3%A9

“John McDonnell MP is sponsoring the “Lawful Industrial Action (Minor Errors) Bill” to tackle the increasing practice by employers of using minor technical errors in the balloting process – which have no material effect on the outcome – to take unions to court in order to prevent them from taking industrial action.”

Nope, resolutely against it. Nothing to do with unions however.

Rather: why don’t all laws have this get out? Why can’t all laws have this get out?

If you’re going to grant a let out for “minor technical errors” for unions then the same should be granted for all groups and individuals for all laws.

Surely they’re missing a trick here. They should introduce a bill to impose the same electoral rigour on all elections. After all, surely how MPs, councillors etc are elected is more important even than strike ballots?

Given that, the government would have to back a bill that held them up to the same high standards as the Unions. Wouldn’t they?

If the objection is going to be: why don’t all laws have this “minor technical errors” get out? Then isn’t the right move to re-draft the laws so they aren’t so sensitive to minor technicalities? It does seem to me that if the law is too fussy, rather than try to legislate a work-around, the ideal thing is to make the law less fussy.

‘The strife is going to happen anyway. How strikes and other actions play in the public eye is largely down to how Labour respond. Shall we have another Kinnockite back-stabbing or will the new leader stand up for the workers?’

Don’t expect much help from that quarter: the conflict between government and the public service unions was instigated by New Labour.

The Tories could easily accept the court’s judgement that changing redundancy and pension conditions without consultation was unlawful without losing face. They’d save themselves industrial strife and pass the ‘blame’ back where it belongs. And you’d probably get less resistance to voluntary redundancy at least if public sector workers could get a decent pay off.

Hmm

The CBI want the strike laws to be toughened in such a way that a 40 per cent “yes” vote would be needed before a strike was allowed. We learn from The Times today that “secret” talks are going on about introducing new curbs on industrial action. It would be surprising if the Coalition Government wasn’t discussing strikes, given the scale of their proposed cuts in the public sector.
…
At the moment a simple majority of those balloted must vote in favour for the strike to be legal. The CBI proposals would mean that not only must there be a majority but in addition 40 per cent of those balloted must vote “yes”. In other words abstentions and non-voting would count as votes against. If these rules were to be applied to, say, local authority elections, there would be very few councils operating.

From LeftFootForward

Wheh they were in power Labour should have repealed the anti-union laws. If the Tories are going to make strike ballots impossible to pass then the unions will simply go for broke and call out an unofficial strike. This could get very nasty and deliberately created by this nasty Conservative government.

The noises the govt is making are deeply sinister.

However, it will be difficult to take any opposition from Labour seriously, given that they did the square root of sod-all for union rights when they were actually in power.