Trade unions have passed a resolution promising a “strategy of non-compliance” with ministers’ controversial anti-strike legislation.
Meeting at the Trades Union Congress’s annual meeting in Liverpool, delegates unanimously agreed to seek to resist the new law, which allows public sector employers to establish “minimum service levels” on strike days.
“That’s what we have to do – that’s the message,” the RMT leader, Mick Lynch, told union activists at the conference. “We are a fighting union movement and we are going to turn this legislation over.”
The motion says: “We have no choice but to build mass opposition to the minimum service levels laws, up to and including a strategy of non-compliance and non-cooperation to make them unworkable, including industrial action.”
The Fire Brigades Union leader, Matt Wrack, described it as a “message of defiance” to the government, signalling that “this government’s nasty, authoritarian agenda will be vigorously opposed by the trade union movement”.
The legislation was passed earlier this year as the government faced a wave of public sector strikes. It will allow employers in sectors including health and transport to issue a “work notice” in advance of industrial action, specifying which staff are necessary to provide a minimum level of service.
Unions that do not comply could be open to legal action – and the named employees could ultimately be sacked if they fail to turn up. The TUC’s general secretary, Paul Nowak, stressed on Monday that it was not encouraging workers to disobey the law. But the motion calls for a “special congress” to be held, “to explore options for non-compliance and resistance”.
“We’re going to explore every avenue we can to defeat this legislation,” Nowak told the Guardian, pointing to a formal complaint the TUC had made to the International Labour Organization, the UN watchdog.
“We’ll explore other legal options as well. We have been very clear that the moment someone is actually sacked for exercising the right to strike, we will be looking to think about what a whole-movement response looks like.
“What we’re not [doing] is instructing people not to comply with the law, or instructing unions not to comply with the law. But we’ve got to look at all of our options.”
Labour has promised to repeal the minimum service levels legislation, as part of a package of pro-worker reforms.
At what may be the final TUC conference before a general election, most union leaders in Liverpool have been publicly supportive of Keir Starmer’s party – though Nowak has urged Labour to consider more radical tax policies.
Starmer will attend a dinner with union leaders on Monday evening, and his deputy, Angela Rayner, will address the conference on Tuesday. The Unite leader, Sharon Graham, will not attend the dinner, however, and used her speech on Monday to urge Labour to nationalise the energy sector.
“Energy privatisation has failed, pure and simple,” she told delegates. “It has crippled our communities and what remains of our industrial base. There is only one credible answer: we need to take our energy back into public hands.
“Don’t let anyone tell you that we cannot afford it: it will cost us £90bn to take our energy back into public ownership,” she added. “We’re a £2.5tn economy. Of course it’s affordable. It is a choice.”
