TORY ministers were forced into a major climbdown over one of the most “mean-spirited” parts of the hated Trade Union Bill yesterday to avoid a humiliating defeat.
The government surrendered over its plans to scrap the check-off system, which allows union members’ subs to be collected directly from their wages.
Business Minister and former Tesco boss Baroness Neville-Rolfe announced the retreat during the report stage of the Bill in the Lords yesterday.
In part IV of a serialisation of his new book, JOHN McINALLY tells how austerity minister Francis Maude’s attempt to destroy the PCS Civil Service union totally backfired
Labour must not allow unelected members of the upper house to erode a single provision of the Employment Rights Bill, argues ANDY MCDONALD MP
It is only trade union power at work that will materially improve the lot of working people as a class but without sector-wide collective bargaining and a right to take sympathetic strike action, we are hamstrung in the fight to tilt back the balance of power, argues ADRIAN WEIR


