Today is a big day, as we take another big step in delivering Labour’s New Deal for Working People.
The majority of the 2016 Trade Union Act is scrapped today. This draconian Tory law was deliberately designed to tie unions up in knots with red tape.
Today, thanks to the Employment Rights Act, all of that starts to change as most of it is repealed, giving unions new rights to get on with the job of organising to win better pay and conditions.
The changes that come in today include the repeal of the majority of the Trade Union Act (not the repeal of the industrial action turnout threshold), and other changes to union rights:
- Reducing the notice period for industrial action from 14 to 10 days, making it easier and quicker for unions to take action in a dispute.
- Increasing the length of mandate for of a strike ballot from 6 to 12 months.
- Simplifying industrial action and industrial action ballot notices.
- Removing picketing restrictions.
- New protections against dismissal for workers taking industrial action.
- Removing the 10-year ballot requirement for trade union political funds.
- Returning to the opt-in to a union’s political fund on joining the union, undoing Tory attempts to silence unions’ political voice.
When unions are free to organise, everyone benefits. Scrapping Tory anti-union laws is a huge boost for working people — now let’s finish the job and deliver the New Deal for Working People in full. https://labourunions.org.uk/deliverinfull/