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Scotland and unions against UK anti-strike laws

Reading time 2 min     Christian Fernsby ▼ | January 11, 2023
The UK Government has insisted new anti-strike laws requiring minimum levels of service from ambulance staff, firefighters and railway workers during industrial action, are “very moderate” and “sensible.”
Nicola Sturgeon
The UK   Nicola Sturgeon
However, unions warned it would “poison industrial relations,” while First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described the proposals as "anti-worker."

She said the Scottish Government would oppose the legislation "every step of the way.”

Business Secretary Grant Shapps told the Commons the plans would “protect the lives and the livelihoods of the British people”.

He said: “The British people need to know that when they have a heart attack, a stroke or a serious injury, that an ambulance will turn up and that if they need hospital care they have access to it.”

Alan Brown, the SNP’s spokesperson for industrial strategy said the law was a weapon in the “right-wing culture war” being waged by the UK Government.

He told MPs: “It was the Tory membership that gave us a Prime Minister who tanked the economy overnight, putting people's mortgages up and giving us higher inflation, and yet it's the Tories who continue to demand that public sector workers take the hit to balance the books.”

Mr Brown said the Scottish Government had “negotiated better pay settlements for Police Scotland, for train crews, and for NHS workers.”

This was done within a “fixed budget,” he added “negotiations with one hand tied behind our back.”

“And now despite working with the unions, Scotland's to have the same anti-worker, anti-union legislation imposed on it against the wishes of Scottish Government.

“An imposition made easier by the Labour Party agreeing with the Tories that workers' rights should remain at Westminster and not be devolved to Scotland.

“We do not want to be part of plans designed to sabotage workers' rights, once again it showed quite clearly if Scotland is to become a fairer, more equal country that respects workers' rights, the only way to do it is to become a normal, independent country.”


 

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