According to reports in the Guardian and elsewhere, the Tories are considering committing to new anti-union laws in their next manifesto.
They want to impose a "minimum service" agreement on the Tube, which would severely limit Tube workers' right to take industrial action. And there's been a long-term drive from politicians like Boris Johnson to change the laws around balloting to mean that any strike ballot which didn't return an absolute majority (rather than a majority of those who voted) wouldn't be deemed a legal mandate for a strike. The irony that these same politicians were elected with votes from far less than an absolute majority of the electorate seems lost on them.
There's no doubt that the trade union movement in Britain is weaker now than in the past (during the 1970s, for example, when a miners' strike toppled Heath's Tories), but the right-wing clamour for new anti-union laws shows the immense power we still have. On the one hand, right-wingers try to claim unions are irrelevant, but at the same time they're demanding the state makes it illegal for us to act! Looks like we're not "irrelevant" after all...
"Minimum service" agreements and new laws on balloting would be further assaults on democratic and workers' rights. The right to withdraw one's labour is a fundamental human right, whatever industry one works in. If the Tories and LU bosses want to minimise the disruption caused by Tube strikes, they should abandon the imposition of dangerous cuts that will hit both passengers and staff.
