At TUC Congress in Brighton, NASUWT – The Teachers’ Union has passed a motion calling for the strengthening of rights for all workers via a second Employment Rights Bill.
The motion also calls for the immediate removal of both the 50% ballot threshold and any linkage between the removal of the threshold and the implementation of e-balloting.
The motion follows repeated moves by the government to dilute and diminish the originally proposed Act.
Matt Wrack, General Secretary of NASUWT – The Teachers’ Union, said:
“For much of the 20th century, despite setbacks and defeats, the trade union movement won a transformation in the world of work and in the lives of working class people through better wages, holidays and pensions.
“Attacks on union rights have been central to delivering the agenda of the banks, the bosses, the billionaires; privatisation and inequality serve only to shift power to those at the top. That is why we welcomed Labour’s pledges before the last election. At last, we could have a government willing to start to turn the tide on workers’ rights.
“However, trade unions still face 50% ballot thresholds. If those thresholds applied in public elections, many of the current cabinet would not even be in Parliament. We were promised that legislation to abolish that act would be introduced within 100 days of the election. So why, two years down the line, is the 50% threshold still in place?
“I don’t know how ministers count 100 days but by standard arithmetic, two years is significantly beyond the timescale set out in promises to voters.
“It is scandalous that the UK is in breach of various ILO conventions. It is scandalous that UK workers do not enjoy an actual right to strike, including the right to take solidarity action. This lack of rights exacerbates all the factors which create such an unequal, bleak and dystopian world offering no future for millions.
"No more delays, abolish the threshold immediately."
