It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Sam Tarry), who made a passionate speech.
As a proud trade union member, I begin by referring the Committee to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I speak today in opposition to the Government’s proposed measures. The decision to go on strike is never taken lightly, especially as families struggle with the financial effects of the cost of living crisis. Opting to lose a day’s wages, particularly for workers such as teachers and nurses, is always a last resort when all others have failed, as I know because I have been on strike as a low-paid teacher.
I will focus my brief remarks on amendment 1. The Bill currently allows for workers who do not comply with a work notice to be sacked. The Labour party does not believe that any worker should be sacked for taking industrial action. As a former state school teacher, and as an MP representing a coalfield area that has previously suffered from Tory attacks on unionised workers, most notably during the 1984 miners’ strike, I have seen at first hand the importance of the right to strike and how it would be fundamentally unfair for people to lose their livelihood for taking the decision to withdraw their labour.
This goes beyond public sector workers. For example, transport services could include road haulage and distribution, both of which are key to South Yorkshire’s regional economy. The Bill allows two ways to enforce a so-called work notice: employers may either sue a union for losses, or they may sack individual workers.
One of the clearest examples of how this legislation targets workers and is not fit for purpose is in the transport sector. The train operating companies do not make losses due to strikes. Operators get a fee regardless of whether their services run, meaning they have no financial incentive to settle industrial disputes. Frankly, my constituents are lucky if they can travel across the
Pennines, whether or not it is a strike day, but that does not touch the companies’ profits under the current system. Surely the only power that this Bill provides in such cases is to sack the workers in question. In an industry facing massive shortages, it is a strange solution to sack staff. It is hard to escape the conclusion that, instead, employers are simply being encouraged to target union activists, which is why amendments 64 and 68 are also important.
Fundamentally, minimum service levels are ineffective. Comparable countries such as France and Italy, which already have legislation in place for minimum service levels, have seen an increase in strikes rather than a decrease. The Government propose this Bill as a solution to the current levels of industrial action in the UK, but the reason why the number of strike days is at its highest in a generation is because this Government have given us a low-wage, low-growth economy for 13 years. These strikes are a symptom of Conservative economic failure. Key workers kept our country moving throughout the pandemic. This Government should stop threatening to sack them; they should pay them a fair wage.