The Times, owned by Rupert Murdoch, who busted unions out of his papers in the Wapping dispute in 1986, has produced another Editorial attacking the Employment Rights Bill.
The Bill passed in the Commons recently with only the Tories and Farage voting against. It’s a subset of the original measure drawn up while Labour was in opposition and could have gone further. As it is important measures such as the right to e-ballot in industrial action votes will apparently not happen until its clear that a framework is in place to make sure it works (not that difficult one might think..). That doesn’t mean that the changes the Bill does include are not an important move away from Tory anti-union laws
The Bill is now in the Lords. According to the Times Editorial the Bill has been ‘widely criticised’. By the Times it certainly has and of course the usual business voices that opposed the introduction of the minimum wage in the Blair era too.
However YouGov polling shows that most of the measure in the Bill have majority public support, mostly at around the two-thirds level and despite Farage’s vote that includes Reform supporters as well.
Nevertheless the pressure for backsliding by the Government is there and needs to be a focus of consistent campaigning at the grassroots
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