Unions will be barred from halting all trains
New laws to stop passengers ‘being held to ransom’
UNION barons will be forced to run a certain number of trains and buses during strikes under laws to stop them ‘holding the country to ransom’.
The Government will today introduce legislation meaning a minimum number of services must run during walkouts.
It will ensure commuters, key workers, hospital patients and schoolchildren aren’t held hostage during bitter industrial disputes.
It sparked a backlash from the militant RMT union last night, which branded Prime Minister Liz Truss ‘despotic’ and the legislation ‘cynical’.
Just 11 per cent of trains ran when the RMT and Aslef unions joined forces to strike on October 1, with many rural areas cut off.
There have been 11 days of national strikes this year, and on Tuesday the RMT announced three more on November 3, 5 and 7. Today’s measures are restricted to public transport, despite unions threatening a winter of walkouts across public services at the TUC conference in Brighton this week.
Ministers are understood to be continuing to explore how the minimum service legislation could be expanded to other public sectors. It does not include raising the minimum threshold of support for strikes from 40 per cent of eligible workers to 50 per cent, or doubling the notice period for industrial action to four weeks.
Miss Truss said she wanted to do both during the Tory leadership election. The Transport Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill will come into force in 2023, meaning it will not have any impact on strikes later this year.
However, it means the PM has fulfilled her pledge to introduce it within 30 days of Parliament sitting after the summer.
Miss Truss went on the attack yesterday at Prime Minister’s Questions, telling Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer: ‘What’s the Honourable Gentleman doing about the fact that train workers are going on strike? The fact is he refuses to condemn them. He backs the strikers, we back the strivers.’
Labour has banked nearly £3million in little over a decade from the three unions wreaking havoc on Britain’s railways.
Last night Miss Truss added: ‘This legislation delivers on our 2019 manifesto and will not only limit the unions’ ability to paralyse our economy, but will ensure passengers across the country can rightly continue to get to work, school or hospital.’ Writing in today’s Daily Mail, Transport Secretary AnneMarie Trevelyan says: ‘I urge unions to get around the negotiating table and agree a compromise.’
But RMT boss Mick Lynch said: ‘This cynical piece of legislation outlaws effective legal industrial action on our railways. It is an autocratic move from an increasingly despotic Prime Minister.’
The RMT, Aslef and TSSA rail unions are demanding pay increases for workers in line with inflation, which was 10.1 per cent last month. Talks have resumed and both sides are still hopeful of a breakthrough.
The new law will apply to trains, buses and London Underground services in England.