CBI lobbies to tighten legal straitjacket on unions‏

Synchronised political lobbying should be marked down as a future Olympic sport. Following on from months of ideological attacks on the public sector, the CBI is now placing collective and individual union rights in the political spotlight. http://bit.ly/dmwKoO

A new CBI ‘Making Britain the Place to Work’ calls for new laws on strike votes to force unions to secure the support of 40 per cent of a balloted workplace for strike action, in addition to a majority of those who actually vote. Also the private sector lobbyists want to reduce redundancy consultation periods from 90 to 30 days. http://bit.ly/aAmIzT

Brendan Barber, TUC General Secretary correctly pointed out that "the UK already has some of the toughest legal restrictions on the right to strike in the advanced world. The courts regularly strike down democratic ballots that clearly show majority support for action. Any further restrictions would be extremely unfair and almost certainly breach the UK's international human rights obligations…a 30-day period does not provide unions – let alone staff unrepresented by unions – any real chance to develop alternatives or effectively negotiate changes."

The new attacks on union rights were presaged by a brilliant analysis of the challenges facing British unions by Professor Keith Ewing in Friday’s Morning Star:

“We live in a repressive state where the right to strike enjoyed by Greek, Spanish and French workers does not exist. Demonstrations in the 1980s against the Thatcher labour laws were met by injunctions against union officials in actions brought by newspaper proprietors. These injunctions would now be brought against the unions directly. Our restrictive labour laws affect not only our ability to resist in the workplace but also our ability to fight back politically against brutal economic policies, even when introduced by a government without a mandate. This is not to say, of course, that action will not be taken where it is possible within the law. But in defending our jobs, our wages and our public services we need to be smart. At least, in the first instance, we need to be smart about operating within but also around the law so that resistance is not crushed by the courts. We need to be smart about ensuring that our organisations are not raided by government, employers and lawyers - as were the print unions, the seafarers and the miners as they resisted some 20 years ago - and we need to be smart in terms of ensuring that we create alliances to produce victories rather than acting alone to create martyrs.”
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/91682