With the draconian trade union bill close to passing into legislation, the Tory line is centred on this very notion: ‘strikes are bad for the public and bad for Britain’. Labour must expose the fallacy of this argument to the public.

One of the most frightening aspects of the bill is the proposal to allow companies to bring in agency workers to cover for strikes. With the potential to explicitly undermine the specific goal of industrial action, this is a move which says to workers: ‘Disagree with the deal we’re offering? Tough, we’ll get other people to do it’. It is a cynical piece of policy which plays on the insecurities of fragile economies by giving businesses the ability to leverage a supplementary workforce at the expense of the rights and wellbeing of their contracted employees. Strikes constitute a vital last resort mechanism for workers to bargain for a better deal in exchange for their labour. To bypass this would be to undermine the workplace relationship and shift the balance of power even further into the hands of bosses, taking labour rights back to the ninteenth century.

It seems clear that in a post-Thatcher Britain, where the very mention of the word ‘strike’ conjures up images of enraged miners and scenes from Billy Elliott, this has all been forgotten. In playing down the necessity of unions in order to legitimise the passing of this bill, the government paints a mythical, rosy picture in which national economic security means low-paid workers always get a fair deal. In reality, it is low-paid workers who would have lost in-work benefits had George Osborne’s tax credit cuts gone through in the autumn statement; it is low-paid workers who have borne the brunt of years of austerity; and it is low-paid workers who will be most vulnerable if this bill passes. When the recent changes to welfare were close to passing, they found a somewhat unlikely group of allies in the House of Lords. Who will stand up for them now?

Over the course of this parliament, it must be the Labour party that shows itself to be the definite and strong voice of the more than six million trade union members in the country, as it has been for millions more since its inception. Strikes can be a great inconvenience to the public, but it must be remembered that trade unionists themselves are the public. Strikes offer a last resort when, as is the case with Jeremy Hunt and the junior doctors, one side simply refuses to negotiate – the health secretary having declared 22 points of the proposed contract to be ‘non-negotiable’. It is a right which absolutely must be protected to ensure justice in the workplace and to prevent the exploitation of millions of workers up and down the country. Should that right be lost, it would more than an inconvenience to trade unionists – it would be a disaster.

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Nick Jones is a labour party member. He tweets @NickMJones94

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Photo: Victoria Peckham