The government’s anti-strike laws are illiberal and unworkable

Editorial: If employees and their unions have not willingly agreed to provide minimum services, who is going to make them do so?

The bill is bad law, which seeks to take away what the British people conceive of as the fundamental right to withdraw their labour (EPA)

There is no right to strike in British law. Nevertheless, the assumption that everyone has the right to withdraw their labour is widely, deeply and rightly held.

Nor is it a right that is explicitly expressed in the European Convention on Human Rights, which refers only to “the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of [everyone’s] interests”. But the court that enforces the convention has interpreted this to mean that everyone has the right to strike – with exceptions set out in Article 11.

These exceptions relate to national security and public safety, and include “the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”. It is on this last clause that the UK government makes its case for the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill. It argues that some industrial action in the public sector interferes so greatly in the rights and freedoms of passengers, patients and pupils that parliament is justified in legislating to require unions to ensure that minimum levels of service are provided during disputes.