PROTESTS against the Tories’ vicious Trade Union Bill took place across Britain on Saturday.

They included actions in Teesside, where thousands of workers are losing their jobs due to the closure of Redcar’s SSI steelworks, and in Yorkshire, where Britain’s last deep coalmine, Kellingley, is to shut.

At a “Kill the Bill” rally in York, local Labour MP Rachael Maskell warned that the Bill could abolish workers’ “basic human rights.

“It will leave the UK with the worst employment rights in Europe except for Bulgaria,” she said.

Neil Foster of Yorkshire and the Humber TUC added: “The Trade Union Bill is scariest thing you’ll hear about this Halloween. The government is attacking trade unions now in advance of another assault planned on public services through savage cuts and privatisation.”

Teesside People’s Assembly supporters handed out hundreds of protest leaflets in Stockton and were joined by Stockton North Labour MP Alex Cunningham.

Assembly secretary Steve Cooke said: “The Trade Union Bill will take away democratic rights it has taken working people generations to achieve.

“It will give bad employers licence to attack wages and terms and conditions, safe in the knowledge there’s little anyone can do to challenge them.”