Explainer-in-brief: What’s inside the anti-strike laws the government is introducing today?
Today the government proved it wasn’t prepared to abandon its carrot and stick approach to the unions just yet, bringing in anti-strike legislation. Business secretary Grant Shapps said there was a “duty to protect the public access to essential public services”, and called it a “common sense approach”.
The rules will mandate that critical industries must have “minimum services” in place even on strike days. This means that some workers would be expected not to strike to ensure a basic level of service is provided – so that people can still call an ambulance, or get on a train, for instance. This approach was already taken by the Royal College of Nursing when their members went on a strike last year.
It would apply to pretty much all public sectors, including health, transport, education and the fire and rescue service.
But in the background, after months of stalemate, there might be some progress on a deal. Health Secretary Steve Barclay was trying out a good cop approach, allegedly considering moving the wage hike for 2023/2024 to the start of this year. The government had previously maintained that this was off the table, so it would be an important concession. Yet the Treasury would have to find the money, and the unions would need to see it as enough to call off the strikes.
Negotiations, however, are always made of two sides of the same coin, and the government wants to bring something home. That’s why it brought the bill to Parliament today. The new legislation would ensure that minimum safety levels are applied nationwide during strikes. This approach was taken by the Royal College of Nursing – who surely weren’t particularly touched by Shapps’ praise today – but not by other sectors. The bill would apply to health, transport, education, fire and rescue and other sectors.
Business secretary Grant Shapps says that other countries, like Germany and France, already have this requirement in place, and that he wants to ensure the same level of safety in the UK. Yet the opposition has condemned the bill. Deputy leader Angela Rainer pointed out that services like hospitals and the railways are in such bad shape that there’s often no tangible difference between a strike day and a normal day. She called the new laws the “sacking nurses bill”. Labour leader Keir Starmer had already said he would repeal it were Labour to win the next elections.