THE Tories’ new proposals on shackling trade unionists’ rights to take industrial action are nothing new.

They can be traced back to the 1800s when workers’ organisations were forming following the industrial revolution. The Tolpuddle Martyrs, early union organisers in agriculture, were transported to Australia for forming a union.

Every gain made by the trade union movement since then has been challenged by successive Tory governments in the 20th century.

Thatcher’s election in 1979 brought an unprecedented amount of anti-union legislation, including making secret ballots for strike action compulsory, as against the decades-old tradition of a workplace show of hands.

The ’80s legislation was disguised as bringing democracy to votes on strike action. But Tory hypocrisy shone through with the withdrawal of the legal right of trade unions to recognition even if the majority of a workforce voted for it.

The new laws included a right to “sequestrate” union funds if a strike was deemed “illegal.”

The 1980s legislation was accompanied by the sinister preparation for police mobilisation if unions defied the law and workers went on strike “illegally.”

The combination of anti-union laws and deployment of the police as a strike-breaking paramilitary force was seen at Warrington in Cheshire in north-west England in ’83, where rogue newspaper publisher Eddie Shah set about destroying the print unions.

Police tactics, including baton charges and use of cavalry against pickets, were seen by some in the labour movement as a “dry run” for what was to come.

They were right — as was infamously seen during the 1984-5 miners’ strike.