As someone who has been a trade union member since the age of 16 and a representative for almost as long I follow with interest any new developments in industrial relations in our country.
Employment law has been transformed over the past 25 years to the extent that is now very difficult for unions to organise lawful industrial action.
I believe Britain now has the most restrictive labour laws in Western Europe.
Not content with the status quo the Tory right are now agitating for even more restrictions, the principle one being that any ballot for action has to have at least a 50% turnout to be legal.
Aside from the fact that it is a nonsense to apply a threshold that applies nowhere else. If it did then very few local councillors would be elected for example.
A further legal restriction would not resolve the original dispute. You have only to look at the BA dispute to see that court action to render ballots illegal on technicalities just prolongs dispute.
My personal involvement in strikes mainly in the post office supposedly the most militant set of workers taught me many things but one overriding feature was that nobody withdraws their labour without having a very
good reason.
Every strike I have been involved in occurred because management left the workforce no option by taking action rather than attempting meaningful negotiation.
Working people must have a right to strike in a free society and liberals must be vocal in defending that freedom.
However we are also concensus politicians by nature who prefer talking through an issue so a compromise can be reached.
So my proposal to the decision makers is if you want to prevent strikes strengthen the role of concilliation and arbitration.
Give a bigger role to organisations like ACAS, encourage greater employee participation through things like works councils.
If you give that a try you might actually find that the vast majority of grievances are resolved without strike action even being considered let alone taken.
