“This legislation is yet another attack on our communities and on the most vulnerable. We see through the Tories lies and spin. We do not need minimum service level legislation.”
By Kate Osborne MP
Tonight Parliament will vote on the Government’s new Anti-Strike law. This law will mean workers like nurses, teachers, railway workers could face the sack for taking strike action to defend their employment rights, pay, and conditions.
The right to strike is a fundamental human right. Workers do not want to strike – in many cases they are on strike to defend your vital services, instead of threatening workers – this Government should be supporting them and settling the disputes.
This affects us all. Our hospitals and our NHS are crumbling, Social Care and Schools are understaffed and under resourced our public services are collapsing because of the deliberate underfunding and running down of services from successive Tory governments.
This legislation is yet another attack on our communities and on the most vulnerable. We see through the Tories lies and spin. We do not need minimum service level legislation.
Minimum service levels would exist if this government hadn’t asset stripped, underfunded and privatised our core services. In fact our NHS would love to have a decent service level everyday – but can’t because this government refuses to deal with the crisis in staffing in the NHS.
Instead of inflaming the situation with their anti-worker rhetoric the Government should start dealing with the reality of why more workers are taking action: low wages, fuel and food poverty and cuts to essential public services.
- This article is a published version of a statement on the right to strike released by Kate Osborne MP on May 22nd, 2023.
- Kate Osborne is the MP for Jarrow and a regular contributor to Labour Outlook. You can follow her on Facebook, twitter and Instagram.
- You can read more on opposing the Government’s anti-trade union legislation from Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, published in Labour Outlook this week.
- Kate Osborne is speaking at “Our Right to Resist” the opening session of Arise Festival ’23 taking place on Wednesday 31st, 2023. You can register here; and see what’s on at Arise here.
