BRITAIN’S largest public-sector union could lose up to 300,000 members as a result of the Tories’ Trade Union Bill, its leader warned yesterday.

The Bill, which receives its second reading in the House of Commons today, is set to include a ban on the check-off system — where employers are authorised to automatically deduct subs from members’ pay slips.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said that his union would end partnership working in the NHS if the change was made.

“We will withdraw and the whole country will suffer,” he said at a press conference at TUC Congress yesterday.

“We will take legal cases (on issues such as equal pay) rather than reach agreements.”

Unison currently has around a million members covered by check-off, including those in the NHS and local government.

Fellow public-sector union PCS has suffered from the withdrawal of the scheme in government departments, where around one in five members has failed to transfer onto direct debit contributions.

Mr Prentis said that the drop-off in Unison membership could be as high as 30 per cent and that the union would recruit 200-300 full-time membership organisers to go into workplaces and sign members up.

He warned that many of the low-paid women making up the majority of Unison members would be “loath to give over details” and that many did not have bank accounts or access to the internet.

“It’s an absolutely cynical attempt to reduce the membership of Unison,” he bellowed.

And he said that the “vicious, vindictive piece of legislation” would “bring in a police state,” saying a requirement for unions to provide members’ names and addresses to the police could lead to blacklisting.

“We’ve got to seriously consider not giving names to the police,” he said.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said she was “focused on beating this Bill” through the parliamentary process and that the right to strike should appeal to “fair-minded people on all sides of the house.”

PCS leader Mark Serwotka voiced concern that the Bill would allow scab labour to be bussed in to break the strike at the National Gallery, which recently reached its 90th day.

“I would want to see three, four, 10 thousand people in Trafalgar Square to stop that happening,” he said.
conradlandin@peoples-press.com