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The working-class movement is on an uphill journey. The latest official (Certification Officer) statistics on union membership, published 6 July, are thankfully out of date, but sobering. Between December 2019 and December 2020, union membership rose a bit. Between December 2020 and December 2021, it fell a bit, despite lockdowns and work-from-home beginning to fade.
Teachers in the National Education Union (NEU) struck again in England on 5 and 7 July,
The Minimum Service Levels Bill, which will soon become law, will force some public services - including the rail network - to always maintain a basic service even on strike days.
The Minimum Service Bill, reaffirmed by the House of Commons on 22 May, says “an employer may give a work notice to a trade union in relation to any strike...” Does the use of the word “may”, rather than “will” or “must”, mean that employers could choose not to issue work notices? If so, there is surely scope for targeted campaigns focusing on, for example, Labour councils and Labour-controlled transport authorities not to issue work notices.
The government is under attack from the Tory right wing for being too “soft” on immigration and on Brexit. Probably the critics are setting out their stall for a Tory leadership contest after the next general election. The big fact for the labour movement is that this Tory government is already very right-wing even on the Tory scale, and feels itself under as much pressure from the further-right as from the labour movement and the left.