Protect the right to strike! – Our workers rights are under attack!
The Conservative and neoliberal British Tory government has launched a massive attack on the right to strike. In the summer of 2023, the British parliament passed a law (Minimum Service Levels Act) that suspends the right to strike for over five million workers.
The anti-strike law means that workers in the health, education, fire and transport sectors, among others, can be forced to turn up for work during strike action and can be dismissed if they refuse to do so. In these areas, workers are to be obliged to guarantee a minimum level of operation even during industrial action. The trade unions involved in the strike are threatened with claims for damages if they do not cooperate. This law affects precisely those sectors that have shown the greatest willingness to strike in recent times. Some of these are in the public sector, while others are public services that are provided by private companies. The planned law would grant the state the right to intervene where it previously did not. The right to strike would therefore be severely restricted!
The right to strike is a fundamental right. It is the central tool which workers have in the fight for better working conditions and higher wages. The undemocratic law restricts the fighting power of trade unions and aims to weaken industrial action. This is one of the biggest attacks on the rights of workers and trade unions in decades. The right to strike in the UK, which was already one of the most restrictive in Europe, will be further eroded. The attack on the right to strike in the UK may also have a domino effect and encourage reactionary efforts in other countries. In this country, too, conservative forces such as the CDU Mittelstands- und Wirtschaftsunion have repeatedly called for further restrictions on the right to strike in areas such as railroads and hospitals.
British trade unions have called for a fight against the law and have decided that they will not call on their members to walk off the picket line during strikes, as required by the new law. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is organizing a campaign to defend the right to strike and is calling for a nationwide protest in Cheltenham on 27 January.
We want to express our international solidarity with the trade unions and workers in the UK and are therefore calling for a rally in front of the British Embassy on January 27 at 12 noon.
Rally | January 27, 2024 | 12p.m. | British Embassy | Wilhelmstraße 70/71 | 10117 Berlin
Flyer for the rally as PDF for download