New laws attack unions and British people

However,  I am appalled at what I feel is a ‘war’ on people like me from this government.

My union Unite has supported not just myself but the rest of manufacturing industry during the recent very tough years. Unite and our members have fought for better pay, saved jobs (including whole industries), supported skills and apprenticeships, ensured we have decent health and safety at work; defended communities, our NHS, public services, worked closely with companies to raise productivity and bring work back to the UK.

The Tory government is now planning pernicious new laws that further shackle and attack the vital work unions do. It is a further attack on the democracy of workers showing Cameron's hypocrisy whose Government was elected by a mere 24 per cent of the electorate. If same rules was applied to politicians there would not be one councillor elected to office and only an handful of MPs at most.Instead, they should be thanking working people and their unions for putting our shoulders to the wheel during the recession, for working cooperatively with employers to find solutions to problems at work.

The government’s hatred of unions will result in very bad laws for the British people. Their appalling Trade Union Bill will not modernise industrial relations, as the government claims, but will make disputes more bitter.

Were the government truly interested in improving things at work, then they would not be undermining basic rights — and were they truly interested in raising turnouts in strike ballots, they would be bringing modern, secure voting to workplaces.

As a printworker, I am deeply shocked by moves to take apart our fundamental freedoms. The land of Magna Carta should not be legislating to make lawful strikes all but impossible, and our government should not be seeking to silence people on social media.

As Senior Tory MP David Davis says, the Trade Union Bill is like something from the dark days of Spanish dictator General Franco and the fascist state.

Some of the conditions in the proposed new laws like labels and armbands are like something from Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s.

Nobody wants this Bill — not the police, the HR managers, agency labour employers, nor civil rights groups. It has no place in modern-day Britain.  

It should be scrapped, now.

Ged Dempsey, Denman Road, Wath upon Dearne