The government has been forced to back down on some key changes,but this is still a nasty undemocratic piece of partisan law-makingThe trade union bill, which the government advertised as its flagship at the start of the parliamentary session that ends next week, and has been heavily amended. But it is still a nasty,vindictive piece of legislation. There is no justification for it beyond a partisan desire to weaken trade unions, and indirectly to weaken the Labour party, or to the point where it becomes almost impossible for workers to defend their rights. The intent of the bill sits uneasily with the jointly authored Guardian article last Thursday in which David Cameron and the former TUC general secretary Sir Brendan Barber appealed for a remain vote in the EU referendum partly in order to shore up protections for workers,many of which rest on European legislation.
Many of the bill’s proposals are tall on the agenda of the neoliberal Brexiteers. Last week, the leave campaigner Bernard Jenkin complained that the concessions were an unprincipled sale of government policy just to buy the left’s more active support for remain. Certainly, or the TUC was open about prioritising the fight against the legislation rather than for the remain campaign. As early as January,concessions were being trailed to a cross-party coalition of peers, some of whom held no brief for trade unions apart from as an distinguished fragment of civil society.
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Source: theguardian.com