TRADE unions could be fined for using social media websites during industrial disputes under “Orwellian” laws being considered by the Tories.

Use of Facebook, Twitter, websites and blogs to promote strikes could be penalised under proposals included in a government consultation connected to the Trade Union Bill. 

Unions would be required to give the government 14 days’ notice that they are planning to use social media during strikes — or face financial penalties. 

The consultation states unions would also need to report: “What those blogs will and websites will set out.” TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady blasted the “dangerously intrusive” idea yesterday.

She said it would mean that “unions could be hit by fines if striking teachers, midwives or cleaners use Facebook without telling the authorities first.”

The union body rang the alarm bells over after their researchers found the censorious ploy buried in one of three consultation documents issued on Wednesday. 

It is just one of many proposed measures aimed at barring workers from the right to walk which have been included in a consultation on “tackling intimidation of non-striking workers.”

Not only would unions have to inform the government about pickets and protests in advance, but they would be required to report “whether there will be loudspeakers, props, banners etc.”

The changes would “mitigate some of the risks of protests linked to trade disputes by enabling better policing, without preventing them taking place,” according to the document. 

Incredibly the government paper also argues the changes would provide “reputational protection” for unions.

It claims it would be “easier for a union to repudiate a protest where individuals have ignored the union’s strategy and are acting of their own accord.”

Institute of Employment Rights director Carolyn Jones said the suggestions would be “laughable if not so Orwellian.” 

She told the Star: “Whether the government likes it or not, workers have rights to privacy and freedom of expression under human rights conventions — rights which can’t be wished or legislated away by the government.

“Modern technology has proved effective in disputes — a 21st-century weapon against Victorian practices.

“These proposed measures show a deep fear and ignorance about how workers respond during disputes. It’s not trade unions who intimidate, but employers.”

These proposals, which would require an amendment to the 1992 Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, would come on top of the Tories’ existing Trade Union Bill.

That already includes plans to criminalise people if they caught standing on a picket line with more than six people.

All strike ballots will be subject to turnout thresholds and even when workers overcome that barrier, bosses will be free to break their strike with agency labour.

Ms O’Grady said official figures released yesterday showing that the number of strikes remain well below 1980s levels shows how “disproportionate” the government’s plans are.

Workers spent 788,000 days on strike last year, higher than the average across the 1990s and 2000s but less than a tenth of the 11.9 million strike days taken in 1980 when Thatcher was Prime Minister.