GOVERNMENT moves to reform strike laws have been condemned by union leaders, with one saying the situation “smacks of Germany in the 1930s”.
Legislation to be published on Wednesday will propose a 50 per cent turnout threshold for industrial action ballots. In core public services, 40 per cent of those eligible must back action.
Current restrictions on using agency workers to cover for strikers are likely to be lifted.
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “This Bill is an affront to fair play. It reads like something straight out of a George Orwell novel.”
Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers’ union Aslef, said: “It smacks of Germany in the 1930s when trade union leaders, and activists, were rounded up, and imprisoned, and, in some cases, executed.
“The Nazis banned unions, and strikes, in 1933, and that is what the Tories are trying to do now.”
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