The Trade Union Bill, introduced to Parliament today, would overturn the ban on employers bringing in agency workers during strikes, would ensure a minimum 50% turnout for all strike votes and the backing of at least 40% of those eligible to vote for public sector strikes.
If passed, it will set a four-month limit between a vote and industrial action and put restrictions on picket lines to ensure non-striking workers can continue to work “without fear of intimidation”.
The Bill also requires “a clear description” of the dispute and planned industrial action to be included on the ballot paper.
Business secretary Sajid Javid said unions had a “constructive role to play” but government “will balance their rights with those of working people and business”.
“These changes are being introduced so that strikes only happen when a clear majority of those entitled to vote have done so and all other possibilities have been explored.”
Employment minister Nick Boles said the reforms were “sensible and fair” and would strike a balance between the right to strike and the right of millions of people to avoid “undue disruption”.
But trade unions said the best way to increase voting in industrial action ballots was to develop secure workplace balloting and introduce online voting.
The Communication Workers Union (CWU), which launched its People’s Post campaign to appeal against what it sees as a threat to daily delivery and workers’ terms and conditions at a protest in Parliament Square last week, said the Bill would make it easier to stop strikes “on technicalities”.
CWU general secretary, Dave Ward, said: "This is not just an attack on trade unions but the rights of all working people in our country, and should be seen in the light of yet another act by the Tories in government since 2010 to undermine those rights.”
Royal Mail declined to comment.
General secretary of Unite, the country’s biggest trade union, Len McCluskey, appealed to the government not to go back to “the days of trade unions being 'the enemy within'".
“Today the government has slammed the door of David Cameron’s ‘One Nation’ Britain in the face of millions of trade unionists," he said.
“These measures aim to deny working people a voice and to tilt power still further towards the rich and big business, who funded the Tory re-election campaign. Tory claims to be the 'workers' party' can be seen fully for the fraud that they were.”
Consultations on the proposed introduction of a 40% threshold for important public sectors; reforming and modernising the rules and code of practice on picketing and protests linked to industrial disputes, and for the repeal of a ban on the use of agency workers open today on gov.uk and will be open until September.
