[IER] Minimum Service Levels: an echo of Mussolini?

[Ben Sellers]

News brief 27/01/23   View this email in your browser 





Minimum Service Levels: an echo of Mussolini?


"Given that the Secretary of State and the civil servants will have no real knowledge of the industries concerned, nor any inclination to learn, we may suppose that the minimum service level will be set at so high a level as to render any strike completely and utterly ineffective, limited to a non-observable protest by the few members who will be allowed to continue with strike action.
Echoes of the early years of Italian fascism here perhaps. Mussolini, in 1919, argued that workers had a right to strike to achieve “parity” with the employers but their strike must not interrupt production.
MSLs will do something similar, workers will retain a right to strike in these six sectors but will be denied the opportunity to exercise that right, most having to go to work to provide the minimum service (not interrupting production)."

Adrian Weir with a historical perspective on the Government's anti-strike legislation (originally published on Labour Outlook) 


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Defend the right to strike
Professor Keith Ewing and John Hendy KC write in detail about Government attacks on democracy and the legal rights of the working class. This article was first published in the Morning Star. 


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The government has declared war on workers
The full might of the state is being used to discipline and cheapen labour, argues Prem Sikka. 


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Minimum service levels legislation: in conflict with strikers and with Europe?
Tonia Novitz examines the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, highlighting the ways in which the legislation differs from minimum service requirements in many other European countries.  


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Anti-Strike Bill Gives Grant Shapps Extraordinary Power to Change Workers' Rights in the UK
Josiah Mortimer reports from this week's Campaign for Trade Union Freedom / Strike Map rally and planning session supported by the IER in the Byline Times  


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Inside Britain’s First Amazon Strike
Amazon is one of the world's wealthiest companies, but its workers aren't paid enough to live on. That's why staff at its Coventry warehouse this week made history by staging the first-ever official UK strike. Taj Ali writes for Tribune Magazine 


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Government publishes proposed Code of Practice on fire and rehire
The draft statutory Code of Practice sets out employers’ responsibilities when seeking to change employment terms and conditions. 



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