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THE Tories’ latest anti-trade union legislation has been dealt a blow after it suffered a string of defeats in the House of Lords.
Attacks on the Minimum Services (Strikes) Bill came from across the chamber on Wednesday, with Tory peer Richard Balfe branding the Bill “ludicrous”and “unworkable” before calling on his own party to “bury it.”
Liberal Democrat Christopher Fox said: “That celebrated supporter of the labour movement, Jacob Rees-Mogg, called the Bill ‘badly written’ and an ‘extreme example of bad practice’.”
One of the key changes made was a measure ensuring that staff who fail to comply with a work notice on strike days do not face the sack or disciplinary action.
Labour peer and former TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady successfully moved to prevent workers being dismissed for a failure to strikebreak.
She warned the Bill could lead to “a shameful and ultimately self-defeating spectacle of nurses and other key workers, whom not so long ago we all clapped, being sacked.”
Former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales Roger Thomas, concerned about the Bill’s impact on devolved governance, won an amendment calling for it to be enacted only in England.
He called the Bill “an outright interference in the running of services in Wales and Scotland.”
Former diplomat and Lisbon Treaty architect John Kerr told the house: “Speaking as a Scotsman and a unionist … it seems to me that if one is to maintain the union, it is important to maintain the devolution settlement.
“This Bill undermines the devolution settlement.”
The TUC and STUC, which supports devolution of employment law, welcomed the government defeats.
STUC general secretary Roz Foyer said: “Removing Scotland from the Bill is entirely right given its encroachment on devolved powers.
“We have won an important battle in this Tory war on workers, but it’s far from the end of the battle.
“We now need the House of Commons to do the right thing and not just confirm Scotland’s exclusion from the Bill but also to withdraw this pernicious attack on workers wherever they work in Britain.”
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “No-one should be sacked for trying to win a better deal at work.
“Lords MPs and rights groups are queueing up to condemn this spiteful Bill.
“Now’s the time for an urgent rethink – the government must ditch this draconian Bill for good and protect the right to strike.”
