Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 21st June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

I will briefly touch on the reasons why I think it is important that this elected Chamber does the right thing and rejects the Government’s opposition to the message from the other place. I will focus on two amendments—Lords amendments 4B and 5B—that go to the heart of this matter and the heart of this pernicious Bill. They relate to the protection of employees and protections for unions.

The context for this Bill, as have said before, is that we have a Government who are increasingly desperate, draconian and authoritarian. We have seen that in the restrictions on the right to peaceful protest and on people’s ability to cast a vote at elections, and now we see it with this draconian attack on trade unions. How can anybody in this place believe that it is in any way acceptable for workers to be sacked if they fail to cross a picket line in a strike that has been lawfully called and conducted, even under the restrictive and onerous requirements we have in this country? How can that be viewed as acceptable in any way?

I will conclude on the protection for unions. I do not want to detain the House for long, because a few people want to speak and there is limited time. Lords amendment 5B is fundamentally necessary because the Bill is an unprecedented attack on the role of trade unions in our society and our democracy. The Minister should not need to have it explained to him that trade unions in our society are independent bodies representing workers. Trade unions in our democracy are not meant to be agents of a Government. They are not meant to be agents of an employer. They are not there to ensure that the bidding of a Conservative Government or a big corporation is done. Unless Lords amendment 5B is backed, unions will be required to take steps to persuade their members to cross picket lines and go to work during lawful disputes, or they will face gargantuan fines.

That is truly chilling. It changes the role of trade unions in our society. That is no small matter; it goes to the very core of what the trade union movement in this country has been about for hundreds of years. Failure to support Lords amendment 5B is a failure to stand up for a basic democratic principle. Conservative Members can snigger about it, but there was a time when even Conservative MPs understood the independence of trade unions.

Let us be clear: the Bill allows the Secretary of State or an employer to set minimum service levels and to issue work notices requiring workers to break a picket line and go into work, and unless we back Lords amendment 5B, the Bill will require trade unions to help the Government and the bosses to achieve that aim. It is draconian and anti-democratic. It should be opposed by everybody in the House, whether or not they are a socialist, a trade unionist, a Conservative Member, a Labour Member or a Member of whatever party. It should be opposed by anybody who believes that trade unions in our democracy are there to represent the will of the workers and their members, not that of the Conservative Government or the boss of a company. It is basic democratic stuff that takes us back hundreds of years. The legislation needs to be resisted if we in this place have any respect whatsoever for our democracy and the democratic role of our independent trade unions, which are there to support the workers, not to support the Government or bosses against their will.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

All I can say about legislation like this is that the Government should be careful what they wish for. This is possibly the most significant piece of trade union legislation introduced in this country for a century—right back to Taff Vale—because it strikes at the basic human right to strike. Because it is so significant, wise people in the House of Lords—I rarely say that—have tabled Lords amendment 2B. All they are saying to the Government is, “This is such a significant piece of legislation that you really do need to consult on its detail and implementation.” Without that detailed consultation, I think that a whole range of problems will be exhibited.

I will give one example from my constituency, which I have raised before. How can there be a minimum level of service for air traffic controllers? It does not exist. Therefore, in effect, the legislation means that constituents who are air traffic controllers will not have the right to strike any more. If that is what the Government want, they should be honest and explicit about that.

Again, the Government should be careful what they wish for. Individuals who are trade unionists will see the Bill as the withdrawal of their right to strike, because at any time an employer will be able to say to that individual, “You have got to work.” If that individual says, “Well, I want to go on strike,” they could be sacked, and they would have no protections left in law. That is an attack on the basic right to strike. What will those individuals do? Large numbers of them will not comply. Then what happens? It will escalate into an even more significant dispute.

The legislation also says to a trade union, completely contrary to three centuries of history, “You will be required to discipline your members for not working.” That basically means that the Government will cause conflict within that particular union, or across the trade union movement overall. Maybe that is what the Government are all about.

When the legislation was brought forward, I thought that the motivation for it was one of two things. The first possibility was that the Government were panicking because of the scale of industrial action taking place, not realising that the vast majority of those industrial disputes would, as always, be settled by negotiation. That is what has happened with most of them. If it was not panic, it was something more sinister. It was Ministers thinking, “Why waste this opportunity? Why not bring forward the legislation that we have wanted for generations to undermine the right to strike?”. If that was the Government’s motivation, I tell them that they cannot implement legislation, no matter how hard they try, if it goes against the grain of our history, which is to respect workers’ rights, because those have been fought for over generations.

The Bill will exacerbate the industrial relations climate in this country. The Government should at least accept the Lords amendments, because they go some way towards establishing a piece of legislation that may be seen as implementable through consultation and through the protection of rights. If they go ahead like this, I can see nothing but further conflict. That will undermine the commitment across the House to try to develop a growth economy again, rather than one held back by disputes, some of which have been engineered in recent times because of the cost of living crisis.

[Chris Stephens]

I, too, refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. In opening the debate, the Minister skirted round amendment 4B and just said that the Government were opposed to it. A number of us intervened at the time, but I really do think that he needs to consider the Government’s position carefully, particularly on that amendment, because it gets to the heart of the Bill and why so many of us are expressing concerns about the attacks on natural justice and on human rights.

Lords amendment 4B asks that employees receive a work notice in good time. It seems fairly uncontroversial that a work notice should be issued to a worker in good time if they are to attend their work. If we do not accept the amendment, we will end up with a scenario where someone returns to work after a day of industrial action and is told they are being dismissed with no evidence whatsoever that they have been given a work notice. Of course, the Government do not want to give the responsibility for the work notice to the employer, so the employer will have no obligation at all to serve an employee with a work notice, but they could dismiss them the very next day after industrial action.

Let me emphasise that the employee would have no recourse to an employment tribunal. Surely it is a fundamental human right, and fundamental to natural justice, that if a worker is dismissed, they have recourse to a tribunal to challenge that decision. That, to me, seems fairly self-evident and obvious, but the Government are allowing a situation where rogue employers will be able to dismiss a worker for taking part in industrial action with no recourse to a tribunal, and they will not need to evidence the fact that that worker was served with a work notice.

The Government find themselves in a preposterous situation by opposing Lords amendment 4B, so I hope that the Minister will be able to answer some of these questions. Is it really the Government’s position, as I have outlined, that it is okay for an employer to dismiss those on strike and that they will not need to provide evidence that the employee was obliged to go into work? It is ludicrous.