Trade Union Bill (Second sitting)
Debate between Victoria Prentis and Seema Kennedy(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Victoria Prentis
Q 167 And you feel that this is completely different from a code?
Sara Ogilvie: When people choose to do something, and when people are required to do something and there are very strong consequences because of that requirement, I think that is a difference, yes, and it is a significant one.
Seema Kennedy
Q 168 I want to go back to this picket supervisor code. If you have large public assemblies—even on things such as school trips, which I have supervised, I have to wear an orange tabard. Is it the actual armband that is causing the great objection? You might have thousands of people on the streets. Surely, just for public order, somebody needs to be able to identify who is in charge.
Sara Ogilvie: If we want to compare it, there are rules in place that govern marches and other kinds of protest. There are not rules about demonstrations; there are rules about marches. If you have a rule about a march, then the organiser must be known to the police. But that organiser could be, if you take the union example, Frances O’Grady; everybody knows who she is. If you have someone who is in a local trade union, they might not want to be known; as we have heard, there are really serious consequences. It is not so much about the organisation; it is about the identification, and the fact that that can then be used to void a whole strike.