Labour will ‘put lives at risk’ with new laws making it easier for public service staff to strike, it was claimed last night.
On Tuesday ministers are set to cave in to union demands and announce plans to repeal anti-strike legislation.
The measures will give a ‘green light’ for strikes across the NHS, schools, ambulance service, Border Force, rail and fire services, critics said.
Last night MPs and experts warned the measures could:
- Leave A&Es ’empty’ of staff and put NHS patients at ‘serious risk of harm’;
- See holidays ‘go up in smoke’ amid border chaos;
- Grind trains to a halt and cost businesses billions.
The measures will give a ‘green light’ for strikes across the NHS , schools, ambulance service, Border Force, rail and fire services, critics said (Pictured, members of the BMA and UNIT trade unions march around Royal London Hospital on October 4, 2023)
Last week Health Secretary Wes Streeting (pictured) offered junior doctors a 22.3 per cent rise over two years in a bid to end repeated strikes they have staged since March 2023
Former Tory party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘Welcome back to the 1970s. The hardline Left are back. This is the beginning of radical change that will give power to the unions to strike at will.’
The Employment Rights Bill will scrap the requirement of ‘minimum service levels’ which the Tories brought in last year. The laws were meant to limit the impact of strikes by forcing unions to allow a standard of service.
Ministers are also looking to repeal the 2016 Trade Union Act which made it harder for unions to organise strikes – including requiring 40 per cent of members to approve action, limiting the frequency of industrial action and extending the notice period unions must give employers.
The government will also set out measures to boost workers’ rights, including scrapping zero hours contracts and making access to sick pay and other benefits available from day one – and easing the rules on flexible working.
Leading cancer specialist Professor Karol Sikora said the plans to change strike laws ‘could put the sickest patients at serious risk of harm’.
‘The system is already broken from repeated strike action which has generated record waiting lists,’ he said.
‘Any delays inevitably mean patients get sicker and store up worse problems for later. While we try to prioritise the sickest, it’s not always easy to tell who that’s going to be. In a worst-case scenario, they die.’
He said that while it was not clear what the proposals might mean for emergency care, it was at least ‘feasible’ patients could see ’empty A&Es’.
The measures have been worked on by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds.
This week ministers will make clear that anti-strike powers will not be used, even before the legislation is repealed. ‘We will express our desire not to use them’, a government source said, in order to send a signal to rail companies and other firms.
Tory Matt Vickers, Shadow Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, said: ‘What happens in the event of a fire service strike, for example? How would the public know what level of service is provided?’
Tory former Health Minister Neil O’Brien said: ‘Other groups considering strikes see this as a green light to take action or up pay demands.
‘If Border Force strike then that is your holiday going up in smoke and massive queues at airports.
‘If teachers strike, parents could again find themselves having to stay home, losing much-needed income.’
Former Tory party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith (pictured) said: ‘Welcome back to the 1970s’
A leaked message from a member of the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee has said it is not enough and further strikes could happen ‘within 12 months’ (BMA members are pictured picketing outside University College Hospital in London in October)
Last week Health Secretary Wes Streeting offered junior doctors a 22.3 per cent rise over two years in a bid to end repeated strikes they have staged since March 2023.
But a leaked message from a member of the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee has said it is not enough and further strikes could happen ‘within 12 months’. The speed at which the new government settled has emboldened GPs, who this week overwhelmingly voted for industrial action.
Shadow Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said: ‘If these laws are scrapped, we end up with hospitals worried about safe staffing levels for critical care, urgent appointments cancelled, wards closing at short notice and emergency care being compromised.’
A government source said the Tories’ approach to ‘try to act tough’ on unions had not worked and led to 1.4 million cancelled NHS appointments and nurses striking for the first time in history.
A government spokesman said: ‘The Strikes Act has only made negotiations harder.
‘This government is committed to getting public services back on track and putting an end to strikes that impact people’s day-to-day lives.
