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SENIOR trade unionists are calling for a mass mobilisation of the labour movement to defeat the Trade Union Bill — including potentially putting thousands of people on strike pickets in defiance of the proposed new law.
PCS union general secretary Mark Serwotka fired the opening salvo on Tuesday night, calling for “millions of trade union members” to defeat the Tory Bill at an STUC meeting in Glasgow.
He said “if the government attempts to use agency workers to break strikes, we will mobilise thousands on the picket lines.”
Mr Serwotka said that PCS had signed up huge numbers of members to direct debit in defiance of Tory attacks on check off last year, and paid tribute to PCS members involved in disputes around Britain, saying that “there has never been a more important time to strike.”
Mr Serwotka also warned that should the Bill be passed the left must have a strategy and not allow defeatism to set in.
He was joined by Unite Scotland political officer Jackson Cullinane, who said union members “must take the message into communities, link up with the anti-austerity movement and build broad alliances” to defeat the Bill.
Speaking to an audience of trade unionists and activists, Mr Cullinane called the government’s proposals a “political project” which was integral to the Tories’ wider austerity agenda, and which demanded a “class response” from trade unions.
Mr Cullinane said that where trade unions are involved in industrial disputes, we should seek to co-ordinate action that “shows both the legitimacy and effectiveness of such action.”
The right to withdraw labour is a fundamental human right “central to the difference between being a worker and being a slave,” he added.
STUC general secretary Grahame Smith called on local authorities, NHS Scotland and the Scottish government to resist interference from Westminster and pledge to maintain facility time and check-off arrangements as part of the STUC’s campaign against the Bill.
Potentially such resistance could also be taken up by devolved administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as by local authorities and health boards in England.
Unison Scotland convener Lillian Macer, who represents workers in the health service, called the Bill “an ideological attack on trade unions’ right to organise and represent workers,” pledging to fight the “unfair” and “undemocratic” proposals.
In reference to the ongoing Labour leadership elections, MSP Elaine Smith picked out Jeremy Corbyn as the right candidate to stand up for working people against the Bill.
Similarly Mr Serwotka, who is the latest high-profile figure to be banned from voting for Labour leader, said that Mr Corbyn’s leadership could transform the debate on the Trade Union Bill in the House of Commons.
SNP MP Hannah Bardell called the Bill “a dangerous attack on human rights” and confirmed that the Scottish government “will continue to put forward the view that it would be the prerogative of Scottish ministers to decide on check off and facility time in Scotland.”