The problem with the ‘right to strike’

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has vowed to report the government to the UN workers’ rights watchdog over its controversial strikes bill, but how seriously can we take this threat?

The TUC’s leader, Paul Nowak, certainly sounds like a man on a mission: earlier this year, Nowak claimed the legislation was ‘almost certainly illegal’, a curious assertion given it was going through parliament at the time. Now that the bill has received royal assent, it appears the TUC is doubling down on its war on the strikes bill. Yet it’s hard not to see the TUC’s complaint as anything other than a stunt designed to further denigrate the Tories who, to the union’s mind, have spent 13 years wickedly chipping away at workers’ rights.

Given this legislation, if properly implemented, could lessen the impact of strikes and thus a union’s grip, it’s no great surprise that the TUC opposes it. The strikes bill will impose a minimum level of service during industrial action across a range of key public sector services.