How unions became the workers’ enemy

LEN McCluskey and Co may tell us that the trades unions are the workers’ friend, standing up for the oppressed masses against employers out to exploit them. But if there was ever a grain of truth in this, there’s none whatever now.

Indeed, this once honourable movement of the industrial working class has become increasingly the mouthpiece of a selfseeking faction of raucous troublemakers in the feather-bedded public sector.

Thus, where the unions’ enemies were once grasping mill-owners, they’re now the great mass of hard-working taxpayers, whom they hold to ransom with threats to bring essential services to a halt.

Far too often, those threats are carried out on the say- so of small minorities, bringing misery to millions and undermining the country’s hopes of recovery.

This is why it is vital the reforms planned by Sajid Javid become law before Mr McCluskey and his hard-Left allies can realise their aim to destroy everything achieved since the credit crunch.

Despite the union barons’ howls of rage – and their grotesque comparisons with Nazi Germany – nothing the Business Secretary proposes is unreasonable.

The unions will retain their right to strike, but with the democratic proviso that ballots to authorise action will need a turnout of at least 50 per cent.

In services such as health, education, transport and fire-fighting, there will be the modest added requirement of support from at least four in ten members, while restrictions on employing agency workers to replace strikers will be relaxed.

With their wafer-thin Commons majority – and the unions’ allies flexing their muscles in the ludicrous, ever-expanding Lords – the Tories will have no easy task to push these vital measures through.

But 12million people voted for them – 78 times more than backed Mr McCluskey for his job at Unite.

David Cameron must resist any instinct to compromise. This is a battle for Britain. And it must be won.