The right to strike must be defended
—The most informative parts of Conservative party conference are the moments when the mask slips. From Matt Hancock saying last month that under-25s are not productive enough to deserve a pay rise, to Jeremy Hunt’s claim that tax credit cuts will get us all working as hard as the Chinese, it is these interventions that reveal the true motives of this government.
It is telling that Jeremy Hunt should hold China up as the model for British industry. This is a state whose idea of health and safety is to install nets to catch the suicide jumpers in their Beijing factories, a place where workers’ rights are virtually non-existent and the means to acquire them tightly proscribed.
But his attitude is wholly consistent with the ongoing attack on workers’ rights here in the United Kingdom, most dangerously in the form of the trade union bill. As well as being a naked political assault on the Labour party and our wider movement, this bill targets the most fundamental right of working people: the right to strike.
It is easy to take for granted the rights we have in this country. From the two-day weekend to holiday pay, none of these were handed to us. They had to be fought for and won, often through industrial action.
Trade unionists understand that a strike is always a last resort. No one takes the decision to go without pay or to cause disruption to people lightly. But sometimes there is no alternative. Terms and conditions have been under assault in recent years under the guise of austerity and, without the right to take industrial action, in all its forms, they will be eroded further still.
If you think that this government or the business interests it serves would be prepared to defend our rights of their own volition, you only need to look at their attitude to one of our fundamental human rights: the right to withdraw one’s labour.
The truth is that there are good employers and bad employers, but there are no benevolent employers. Good employers understand that a respected, well-paid workforce increases productivity and is good for a company’s profits. And bad employers? They will simply do whatever they can get away with.
That is why we need a strong trade union movement, to work constructively with those employers who understand what makes a company great, and to take to task those who seek simply to exploit and undermine their workforce. As Roger Baldwin of the American Civil Liberties Union once said, ‘Silence never won rights. They are not handed down from above; they are forced by pressures from below’. The labour movement needs to stand together now in defence of our own interests, because no one else will do it for us.
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Ruth Smeeth is member of parliament for Stoke-on-Trent North
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