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Strike law changes.

New Procedure coming into place in order to go on strike.

As we have reported for some time the government is pushing ahead with plans to reform the strike laws, plans that should be passed this year.

Some of the biggest changes are to the strike ballot rules, changes that I am sure will see unions adapt the way strike ballots are conducted, the new proposals ask that there should be a 50% turnout for a strike ballot, current rules do not require a threshold to be achieved.

In core public service sectors, such as education, 40% of all those able to vote must support any action and unions will not be able to use the results of historic ballots to take action.

The government also plans to allow temporary workers to be able to cover for staff on strike.

It will be interesting to see what happens next as changing these rules will make strike action almost impossible, mainly in the public sector.

Postal strike ballots in the public sector normally receive a fairly poor response, under the new laws not only does it need to exceed 50%, a figure which has never been achieved, but 80% of that figure need to vote for action.

So what happens next; the government put in place reforms that make a strike almost impossible because of the new voting rules and if a strike does happen then the workforce can be replaced with temporary staff, I can see trouble ahead.

The right to strike is a very important one and many positive changes come about through strike action, but at the same time, the government is right in saying that strikes should result from a clear decision from the workers, but the government should not be able to tighten up on ballots without allowing unions to change the way ballots are conducted, the use of electronic voting and secret ballots should be commonplace.

I am sure logic will prevail, the government will be sensible to allow unions to evolve and adopt new technologies, whilst the passing of this law will make headlines, those headlines will be much bigger and more damaging to the government if the unions test the laws and get public sympathy because the laws are highlighted as draconian.

Strike law changes.
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