Bans on strikes in "essential" services? Impractical thresholds for strike ballots? The debate is now open. Therefore, let it be joined in earnest.
It is astonishing, and yet somehow not, that in 13 years, New Labour
never legislated for John Smith's signature policy, namely that
employment rights should begin on day one of employment and apply
regardless of the number of hours worked.
Ed Miliband should signal once
and for all that he intends to give us the Government that we would have had in those 13 years if Smith had lived,
by legislating to create that fitting monument to the Great Man.
Places
like that consistently outperform us. Have you ever been to Germany, which has powerful workers' representation at every level
of corporate governance? We
have had 30 years of the other way of doing things. Look where it has
ended up.
Miliband should renew John Smith's promise, and make his own to build on the statutory right of every worker to join a trade union and to have that trade union recognised for collective bargaining purposes, by giving every trade unionist so recognised the statutory right to take industrial action in pursuit of a legitimate grievance, including strike action, and including solidarity action of a clearly secondary character (such as a work to rule in support of a strike) within a single industry or corporation.
Miliband should renew John Smith's promise, and make his own to build on the statutory right of every worker to join a trade union and to have that trade union recognised for collective bargaining purposes, by giving every trade unionist so recognised the statutory right to take industrial action in pursuit of a legitimate grievance, including strike action, and including solidarity action of a clearly secondary character (such as a work to rule in support of a strike) within a single industry or corporation.
Bans on strikes in essential services indeed.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see you and your family violently assaulted and burgled while the police were " on strike".
Or seriously ill while the hospital was on strike.
The protection of the law, universal healthcare and public transport is either a universal right or it isn't.
Time to call a nurse, all right.
ReplyDeleteEven Tim Stanley and Guido Fawkes were tweeting against this idea this time last week.
Even Norman Tebbit ruled it out when he was Employment Secretary.
It's not Ed Miliband we need, it's David Lindsay.
ReplyDeleteSo?
ReplyDeleteWould they like the law to be suspended in their neighborhood while the police go on strike?
Oh, of course, they don' live in the kind of neighborhood where they'd have to worry.
Every other European country mandates a basic level of public transport be maintained in the event of a strike.
Everyone except mad old Britain. And David Lindsay.
Lucky you live in a village eh?
Not from a public transport point of view under this lot, no. Where is our minimum level of provision?
ReplyDeleteNot that any such requirement precludes strike action abroad. Nor should it.
Police strikes also happen everywhere else, including in America.
The Police are civilians. More so here than in many other countries, in fact.
Yet they have the right to strike in those countries, but not here.
Only people rich enough to live in areas that don't need the police could agree with you.
ReplyDeleteIf you were an elderly person living in a crime- ridden estate and the police or the local hospital just decided to " go on strike" for the day, maybe you'd get it.
The police are sworn to uphold the law at all times, not just when they feel like it.
We are supposed to have the protection of the law, and access to universal healthcare at all times, not just when the police or NHS staff fancy turning up to work.
Anyone delivering vital public services has a special obligation to those whose taxes pay for those vital public services.
Shocking that you can't see that.
Ask them in the countries where this is normal. Which is everywhere comparable to Britain.
ReplyDelete"the countries where this is normal"
ReplyDeleteAh, you mean Europe. The kind of countries where fascism and communism was "normal" until about 20 years ago, you mean?
The kind of countries where you can be held for months without charge and jailed on the say-so of a judge, without jury?
I love the way the Left bases its entire worldview on countries far less free and democratic than ours.
America.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Old Commonwealth.
And Britain, at one time, a time of which you ought to approve in many ways.