The government’s statement on proposed new strikes legislation was short and simple. It praised the nurses for agreeing minimum service levels before going on strike, recognising their greater duty to the public to avoid action which could lead to the death of a patient. The government said it needed to put in place similar minimum service agreements for the NHS , the fire service, education, railways, nuclear decommissioning and borders. They argued they had no wish to take away the right to strike, and were copying practices in some other European countries. The Opposition saw it as an attack on workers rights and said they would oppose.
It will be interesting to see how the government proposes to enforce any such law, as by definition if people have gone on strike it is difficult to get them to come back to work against their will. The Bill implies action for damages against Unions not ensuring the minimum standard, but it will need clarification. Certain workers willĀ be identified as essential to maintain the minimum service and they will be expected to turn up.Ā It will also be difficult to decide what is a safe necessary minimum standard of rail services, given the way motor transport, planes and boats can be substituted for trains. The government intends to consult on minimum standards which will doubtless produce aĀ variety of views. I would be interested in comments on these matters as I do not have settled views myself on how this will work.
January 11, 2023
Good morning.
Sorry, Sir John but you do ask rather difficult questions which cannot be answered by one or two lines. Happy to wait for this to be posted.
Do workers for supermarkets, shelf stacker, drivers, managers etc have the right to strike ? Well of course they do, and they carried on working through the SCAMdemic because they too knew that there work was vital. But no one is suggesting that their rights to withdraw their labour be removed and, the simple reason for this is, they are well aware that both for the consumer, the employer and themselves, there is a CHOICE. They can CHOOSE to go to another employer if they so wish, thereby removing their labour but, still maintaining employment. Bad business will always suffer from bad employee retention and, in a drip-drip fashion, this will erode the competitiveness of the business as better employees get better wages and conditions elsewhere.
In the State provided system there is little CHOICE and therefore little option for the employee and the consumer. The State, being the employer, has in effect a captive market. Neither the consumer or the workforce can get seek alternatives. For the workforce they have three options. Carry on as before. Strike, or leave the profession. For the consumer there is no CHOICE whatsoever. Traditionally the consumer has had the CHOICE of taking their custom / money elsewhere but, since the State has the money already this is no longer a reasonable option.
In short, the market is broken between the supplier and the customer and the cause of this is the State who rations and manages both.
I am against this legislation as it just kicks into the long grass the root cause of the problem. And that is the failure of all political parties to grasp the nettle and admit that the current state of healthcare provision is simply not working, and that major reform is necessary, including some form of health insurance similar to that on the continent.
January 11, 2023
Good Morning,
Sir J, you must know by now, If the minister for talking nonsense and doing nothing has been asked to do this work, then it’s not going to happen. Don’t waste your time.
Further observation – If Mr Sunak came up with this idea, then it shows an authoritarian attitude, and if he gave it Mr Shapps then he’s an incompetent manager as well.
Not very promising start is it.
January 11, 2023
And if the minister finds it difficult to define how the law will be enforced I’d suggest it is a bad law that should not be introduced.
That said, if other European countries operate similar laws then have a look at how they enforce the law. It really should not be difficult to replicate a successful model.
January 11, 2023
We’ve all seen how the French enforce the law – with sticks tear gas and cracked heads. Is that the model they are gagging to bring here?
January 11, 2023
Enforce the law graham, the French canāt even increase their pension age from 62 to 64 by 2030!
Us English just take everything no tear gas or cracked heads necessary. We take public sector workers removing their services but still expecting us to pay our insurance every day they arenāt providing the service. So greedy they got an extra 2 days holiday this year, the cost of that is massive. Everything just taken for granted.
Ā£100,000 pension pot buys you Ā£4500 with spousal transfer at 66! Take it earlier they get less. Itās going to be 69 by 2030.
January 11, 2023
PB : According to an employment lawyer – GB News 09/Jan discussion ( Farage ) – this is not really anything new and not uncommon, with the likes of Germany, France, Italy & Spain having similar laws. I understand the basis of this was in the 2019 Government’s manifesto & in view of the current pickle, the UKG is forcing itself into doing something, and quickly. I think it is very complex and although I basically agree with such legislation, it does indeed need time and expertise to reach the right definitions and balance of rights for both workers & the public. Nobody wants to see yet another piece of bad law placed on us all.
January 11, 2023
Indeed. Shapps came up with the most useless, ill informed, in effective Covid travel restrictions costing us both money and lost trips. The continental countries I got away to were safer than the non existent distancing in my local supermarket.
He also of course campaigned against Covid lane restrictions in his own constituency that he helped implement in the first place.
His fingerprints are also all over, changing the Barnett report putting back Rail re organisation to the extent that it will not go through before Starmer takes over.
If Sunak is relying on him, he is truly doomed.
January 11, 2023
+1
Govt does not have the courage or nouse to stick up for N.Ireland to keep it as part of our country! A sovereign independent nation allowing another to interfere in its internal business! JR, taking back control? No border down Irish Sea? No checks on goods from GB to N?I? It would be unconscionable to allow this we were told by May and Johnson!! N.Ireland under ECJ, rules, laws and regs!! Forcing DUP to cave to EU demands is an act of treason/treachery. Scrap protocol now. We voted leave EU. No more inter connectors, taxes lower than EU to be competitive in the world not higher under Hunt!, no more level playing fields or lockstep with EU. Your govt never, absolutely never, stands up for our country and particularly England!
Brave talk about Ukraine while holding hem of US skirt but allowing EU a foreign body to check goods from one part of our country to another!! Is Sunak Hunt and Cleverly that treacherous? Why does the UK not insists we see goods records from Texas to Arizona?
January 11, 2023
The principle should be if you operate in an essential public sector or govt enabled monopoly (or virtual monopoly) then there need to be no strike rules. That applies certainly to NHS medical staff as it does to the police and the armed services. Neither the post nor rail are in effect monopolies anymore as the market is increasingly working out alternatives. So for them the employees who strike must simply be made to understand the consequences of making their service ever less reliable and relevant. That of course means cuts to jobs. Likewise no need to prevent all the equality & diversity advisers in the NHS from striking if theyād like to. Just see whether we can manage without them (I think we can) and then get rid of them if so. Likewise probably much of the civil service. The border staff eg have demonstrated in their recent strike how few of them we really need. Time for some creative innovation in the face of these politicised strikes.
January 11, 2023
I cannot help but notice that the US Postal Service still has a letter post monopoly. As far as I understand one can send a first-class letter east coast to west coast (3,000 miles) – or north-south, from New York to Florida (2,000 miles) – for about 60 p.
Here a similar letter would cost nearly Ā£1 and even a second-class stamp is over 60 p. Yet our distances are a lot shorter. So, how does the USA get its nationalised letter post to work so well .. is it by having ended the restrictive practices that might still linger on here?
Other things being equal, I’m generally in favour of what works. I think with letters it mght be cheaper to reintroduce the Post Office/Royal Mail monopoly, say for items weighing less than 100 or 150 grams.
January 11, 2023
The Opposition saw it as an attack on workers rights and said they would oppose.
Of course they did, but if you want to go back to the 60s-70s with close shops and Unions dictating the odds then we do need new laws to safeguard the public and stop these unions from people going about there business , at the end of the day unless your a complete idiot all these strikes are a collective of anti Tory government unions backed by the opposition benches to try and bring the elected government down and force a General Election nothing more nothing less
January 11, 2023
Be better to have small business units employing workers, and negotiating t & C’s locally, allow managers to properly manage and incentivise staff. Get away from the big national agreements.
January 11, 2023
In the 1970s print unions forced membership plus fees on unwilling suppliers, corralling them into closed shop regulations. They banned any person or business not paying from having the words and images they produced printed, declaring them āblackedā and ordering their print members not to touch such material. It was effectively demanding money with menaces. Thatcher stopped it efficiently.
January 11, 2023
Since when has there not been a winter surge in the NHS after Christmas? Not money issue but a management issue led by left wing Blaire supporting donkeys at NHS. Labour run under a Tory badge ie Simon Stevens and now Hewitt. An admission in itself your party does not and cannot run the country!
January 11, 2023
+1
January 11, 2023
It’s another attack on democracy by an out of control right wing Tory government with no care that the people that provide public services are using the great Tory creation of food banks to survive it’s another attack on working people so that your billionaire Paymasters can put another zero on their inflated bank accounts. Toryism is killing British people daily. For gods sake go
January 11, 2023
Nothing right wing about this govt.! You are having a laugh.
January 11, 2023
Here’s a laugh
”A giant $21 billion renewables project in Australia that planned to power Singapore using a 4,200-kilometer submarine cable has entered administration after shareholders couldnāt come to a consensus on the future funding of the plan”
January 11, 2023
So a person dies due to a Marxist led union strike action to weaken a useless, lefty Tory government and no one is prosecuted or criminal responsible for that?
Super, duper. I see now where the real power lies
January 11, 2023
The government has had 12 years to sort out public services but has bent to their will at every stage.
They disrupt the country but continue to get gold plated final salary pensions. They get more holidays and sick time than the private sector.
Their salary is over 10% more than the private sector in average.
It’s time theses Marxist clowns were cur down a peg or two.
January 11, 2023
And yet teachers and nurses are quitting the public sector to take jobs at Tesco and Costco. If the public sector is all milk and honey, why are so many deciding that working in a supermarket is preferable?
Having worked in the public sector for a few years in the early part of my career, there’s no way I would want to go back. Pay, conditions and benefits can be way better in the private sector.
January 11, 2023
What grade nurses and teaches Peter, teachers assistants (unqualified Mums) and health care assistants called nurses on grade 2? Because I find it hard to believe a qualified teacher or nurse would ever take a supermarket job over their job. For a start the teacher wouldnāt get full sick pay or anything like the number of holidays they get, plus the early finish allowing them to walk their own children home.
Can beā¦ can beā¦
January 12, 2023
The reports I’ve seen have referred to nurses who have been through their degree training and qualified, so it’s unlikely they were employed as Health Care Assistants.
The band 3 salary range starts at Ā£21,730 and the band 4 salary range starts at Ā£23,949. For comparison, 40 hours a week at the current minimum wage is Ā£19,760, and from April that will rise to Ā£21,673.60. My local Lidl employs people at Ā£12/hour to stack the shelves and work on the checkouts which works out at Ā£24,960 for a 40 hour week.
January 13, 2023
Peter, are the reports online? I’ve been trying to find definitive which grade points the vacancies are.
You talk about qualified nurses yet then give the grade 3 salary pay? Why? Band 3 Health Care Assistant is someone with care certificate and NVQ 3 who has achieved enough experience in work to move from grade 2 into grade 3 position. I have written here repeatedly when the government increased the NLW by 6.6% what did they expect other grade points would want? This year they are putting it up 9.9% and Labour doesn’t think that is enough so expect the pay talks to escalate again come April.
Degree Qualified nurses start on grade 5 at 21 years of age, typically on Ā£27,055 pa. (that is the minimum and doesn’t include any allowances or location weighting) + enhanced pay for evenings, nights and weekends, a good holiday package, a fantastic pension and more perks. In 2018 there was a new pay scale giving nurses better recognition. Back in 2015 a nurse on band 5 started on Ā£21,692. You also compare a 40 hour week on the NLW with a 37.5 hour week nursing job. Supermarket staff don’t get the weekend uplifts, full sick pay, or anything like the pension so your transferees will regret it soon enough. If HCAs on grade 3 want just SSP, fewer holidays, and to match supermarket staff with workplace pensions to match perhaps the government should offer them the two choices.
There was a Ā£1400 uplift to all pay bands backdated to 1st April 2022 (you have not included that). Band 2 is actually band 1, as band 1 was done away with, so band 3 is the old level 2.
January 12, 2023
Peter
A supermarket worker earns more than a Qualified nurse. ?
I think you have been reading the wrong media, suggest you google Royal College of Nursing website and read for yourself the details on Pay Scales, Overtime, Sickness benefits, Holidays and Pensions
January 12, 2023
Alan, I suggest you look at the figures in my response to a-tracy immediately above. You will find the pay scale figures I quoted on the RCN website.
January 13, 2023
Alan he is quoting the pay of healthcare assistants that they now call nurses. A degree qualified nurse starts on grade 5.
However, healthcare assistant will want their differentials to the NLW and if the government keeps raising the lowest paid by 6.6% and 9.9% then everyone else wants their differentials for their extra skills. If Labour get in and make the NLW Ā£15 what will a grade 3 nurse want then, why aren’t they asked this?
January 11, 2023
@DOM I want to be in Government, I get to make speeches, get paid, raise taxes and then relax as that is Conservative version of management
January 11, 2023
Joe Voter is criminally responsible for electing them, I’m afraid.
January 11, 2023
Joe Voter is criminally responsible for believing Tory manifesto lies.
January 11, 2023
Well we do not get anything like decent minimum standards even when they are working normally. Very hard to force people to work if they do not want too. Very easy for them to disrupt the system, claim the ambulance will not start say you are feeling sick or similar.
January 11, 2023
Good programme on LBC yesterday with a signalman on the railways explaining that his job was very skilled and you have to know the sigbals. You either turn up or you do not turn up for work. If you do not, there can be no trains. If you do, then why not run all of them?
Aged fifteen, in the 1950s, my brother and I ran a train set in the nursery.It was electric. We were in total control. It worked quite well (apart from frequent derailments). I understand the Docklands Light railway works in the same way. As does the overhead railway to Sentosa Island in Singapore (been on both – lovely ride!)
January 11, 2023
I too, am not sure what I think of these new measures. Itās quite a long listā¦ and I always thought the three emergency services should be unable to strike, but this new bill doesnāt feel right.
The governmentās go-to-action always seems to make new laws, usually restricting or prohibiting peoplesā rights. The electorate also have rights – to emergency services- butā¦ how have we managed pre-2023?
Sorry, this measure doesnāt feel right.
January 11, 2023
So Andrew Bridgen has been suspended from the House of Commons for five days. Is this to deter other MPs from pointing out the large levels of Covid vaccine damage that has certainly been done?
I see that James May is lauding electric cars for their high performance and even ālack of smellā. āFor now, the battery electric vehicle, or BEV, is triumphant and the way to go for the foreseeableā he says, well they can accelerate quite well (if that gives you a cheap thrill) but they are more expensive, more polluting (over their useful lifes), produce more CO2 than keeping your old car, the batteries go off (and fail to hold charge) quite quickly, the batteries lose charge even when standing, they depreciate rapidly, take hours to charge up and have very limited range, cost far more per mile in finance and depreciation costs. Oh and we do not even have low carbon electricity to charge them with if that is you concern.
(Words left out Ed) Also London the most congested city in the world it seems. This is clearly is by government design with their road blocking and constricting policies. Must do wonders for pollution and productivity levels.
reply Andrew Bridgen was suspended from Parliament over lobbying and his interests, not over his views on vaccines.
January 11, 2023
SJR, you say the government wants to put in place minimum service requirements for ‘borders’. Does that mean a minimum standard of service for the migrant taxis? I do hope the customers (NGO people-smugglers) will accept it. Suppose for a moment THEY went on strike. Then what would happen to the government’s cheap labour policy?
January 11, 2023
The woke lefty establishment will never enforce it anyway. Will get repealed in a few months when the conservatives are out of office.
January 12, 2023
When the left get in their workforce falls back into line with their mouths stuffed with our money, more holidays given, less hours, more days off paid for any reason, ignore sick leave, give their union cheerleaders the power. They gave the Doctors a fantastic contract in 2004, everything they asked for and they’re still not happy – they’ll never be happy.
January 11, 2023
Legislation at the drop of a hat to deal with strikes, nothing of the sort to deal with ever growing illegal cross channel migration and its obscene costs and tangible threats to our safety.
January 11, 2023
Our wonderfully efficient local governments – Council ācanāt chargeā new Ā£8m electric-powered bin wagons
York Council has been accused of failing to build facilities to charge the vehicles in time.
So by the time the can the vehicles will have depreciated hugely I assume?
January 15, 2023
Intresting to see that this is l you have got on this post. Funny that.
Hiding are we?
January 11, 2023
I can’t help noticing the irony in that these self-proclaimed libertarians are apparently the most vehemently in favour of removing the liberties of millions of ordinary people.
They couldn’t possibly be dishonest, does anyone think?
January 11, 2023
Does the government still allow some civil servants to undertake full-time union duties, while on the public payroll? If so, may I suggest that it ends the practise.
January 11, 2023
All as usual then and Quoting from @Donna yesterday – Mrs Thatcher once said āThe problem with todayās politicians is they make a speech and think theyāve achieved something. They havenāt; theyāve just made a speech.ā
This Conservative Government is as is said in some parts of the World āAll talk and no trouserā
A Government that refuses to actually, really manage, is no Government at all. We have had 12 years of pontification and other than taxes on top of taxes no delivery.
January 11, 2023
If you are going to designate a job as critical then you also raise your duty of care levels to the public to ensure the staff are paid a competitive salary. Canāt have one without the other.
January 11, 2023
The governments concept is to re plug the water leak in the dam, with a bigger plug, without understand why the hole developed in the first place
January 11, 2023
āThey argued they had no wish to take away the right to strike…ā
Thatās a difficult one to swallow.
Assuming the government get anywhere near implementing this and raiding union coffers it will be interesting to see the reaction.
Violence does not feature greatly in politics in this country unlike, say, in France. I wonder if this could be the final straw ?
January 11, 2023
Sounds like yet another badly drafted piece of legislation. Plenty more work for the lawyers.
January 11, 2023
Personally I would ban any monopoly service provider from going on strike but this idea, if correctly implemented, is a good start. I hope it applies to trains and tube.
January 11, 2023
There should be a distinction in the reasons for going on strike. If it’s about pay, then public sector workers should not be permitted to strike for that reason. If they don’t like their salary, let them resign and get another job.
For any other reason, replace the right to strike for the right to suspend the paymaster’s salaries, whoever that might be. We might see disputes resolved more quickly then.
January 11, 2023
So illegal to strike therefore de facto forcing people to work for less money than they want. So like lockdown, totalitarian State intervention.
Get ready for a lot of people going off sick.
January 11, 2023
Hahaha! NOBODY is “forced” to work. They can simply resign. What they should not be able to do is block the post but not do the job. People who are providing a service to others should either work or resign. There is NO “right” to strike. This is a concept that only filthy marxists believe in.
January 12, 2023
It’s more ‘filthy Marxist’ to believe the government owns your time and can force you to work for less than people need to live on, having mucked up the economy, even if you work for private companies such as the railways. With almost full employment and many not wanting to work anyway, it may be difficult to replace the workers whose skills their firm relies on. Trite dogma is easy to say, but less easy to implement.
January 11, 2023
If you work in an essential* or security-related public sector** role it should be part of your contract that striking is illegal. Any pay settlements currently being negotiated should be contingent on a change of contract.
* NHS, Fire Service, Ambulance Service (Police already are banned from striking)
** Border Farce, Defence, MI5/MI6
If minimum service levels operate in other countries, I suggest the Government finds out how they operate and, if there is more than one system in place, choose the best and copy it. Personally, I don’t see how you can select the strikers and non-strikers from a workforce (unless they select themselves) and I suspect this will turn out to be yet another Government announcement of action they say they propose to make which will never progress beyond that point.
January 12, 2023
I rather agree with Donna. The more sensible solution would just be to ban essential or to start with at least the most essential workers including ambulance, fire, N.H.S., and residential care workers from striking at all. However politically speaking ‘minimum service’ levels’ might have something to be said for it for the Conservatives as its complications will keep it in the news time and again to the expense of the Labour Party who are showing that they are far more committed to kow-towing to trade unions than to preserving the lives and limbs of ordinary voters. This reveals the real Labour Party and the real Starmer behind the facade they have latterly been trying to put up to fool voters.
January 12, 2023
Oh yes, this was a purely political announcement …. intended to remind conservatively-inclined voters (as if we need it) that Labour has a history of supporting striking workers and is funded by the militant trade unions.
January 12, 2023
With dependency on each other, who is to say what constitutes ‘essential services’. I remember when the dustmen went on strike it was pretty foul quite quickly with rats and danger to health. Would they be on your list? Where does it end?
January 11, 2023
Unfortunately most hospitals, especially Emergency Departments, are already below minimum safe staffing levels every day. How will any new law stand up to scrutiny if unions are required to try to increase staffing on strike days?
January 11, 2023
The root cause is lack of competition.
Ideal world scenario, there’s sufficient competition in these trades that the nurse, fire person etc. gives a month’s notice and wanders off to the neighbouring hospital, fire station which pays slightly more. Anything approaching a strike is a breach of contract. This results eventually in their original hospital, fire station etc. increasing pay levels. It’s what happens in the real world. A mass trike just means that hospital, fire station would go out of business.
Given the lack of willingness of an employer such as the NHS, fire service etc. to create competition, the best they can hope for is to agree very long term Ts and Cs with employees, whereby any disputes go to an arbitrator.
When these break down, the employer is really in the hands of the situation he alone has created- a monopoly employer facing a monopoly employee (unions). All the supposed simplistic gains of having a single workforce with single terms of employment are lost, because your workforce doesn’t like you but has nowhere else to go. They are between a rock and a hard place but so are you as employer.
The only realistic solution is legally enforced arbitration. Not ideal, but suck it up or set up a competitive situation.
January 15, 2023
This simplistic nonsese may well work in the fast food industry, but not in medicine and many of you should note that a huge number of public sector workers are giving a strike you understand by quitting eith no one to replace them.
What next in your deranged fantasy world of libertarian authoritarianism? Conscription and forced mobilisation?
January 11, 2023
There is merit in a system in which all Government employees do not have a right to strike.
January 15, 2023
How would they i crease their wages and improve their conditions?
January 11, 2023
Agree certain services should have non strike agreements, but the more you try to threaten or intimidate workers/strikers the less co-operative they will become.
Once again the Government is clueless about Human Nature, what is to stop a group of workers all refusing to turn up at work because they are reporting in sick, or taking a holiday, or requesting to “Work” from home, or doing the very old fashioned “working to rule”
Indeed for the last couple of years workers were told to stay at home if you were infected with Covid, work from home if you can, do not travel on public transport if not necessary, you reap what you sow !
Difficult to sack anyone nowadays without extensive oral and written warnings
The more specific laws you make, the more complex you stand to make the end solution, just look at our criminal justice system with it’s huge delays, expense, confusion, complication and farcical judgements, for an example.
Good grief we cannot even return illegal immigrants, let alone make people work !
January 11, 2023
So if workers are on strike, and time goes by after being required to return to fulfill their work contract, then dismissal notice should begin.
January 15, 2023
Who will replace the worker and will they be paid more or less in better or worse conditions?
Pesky facts.
January 11, 2023
When employees have a contract to work and donāt do so, why should their employment continue?
Employers and the consumers paying to use their services need reliability.
Disrupting consumers’ lives is often hostile and harmful.
January 15, 2023
Does this apply to the government as an employer or should the workers just put up and shut whilst enduring falling wages and worsening comditions?
I bet you cant understand why no one wants to work long hours for low pay in dangerous conditions?
A complete mystery to you, as if you and many others on this site ever did!
Absolute disgrace and an insult to ones intelligence.
January 11, 2023
We do have a problem that minimum service levels are not being provided in hospitals, railways, etc but it’s not because of strikes, it’s because of 12 years of disastrous Conservative government
January 11, 2023
I don’t like to the proposal to restrict the rights to strike but there does need to be some activities which must be subject to restriction, as is the case rightly with the police and the armed forces. I’m not sure it should be extended any further but if it is it should be all or nothing like the two mentioned. It should not be ‘half and half’ or selective as it won’t be workable in such a way.
The government, any government, and ministers, should be able and capable of making the social, moral and economic case against striking at all, but in particular when they will cause harm and hurt against individuals, if that is its belief. Sadly the present government, and its leaders, are incapable of such a stance – it is unable to inspire anyone, it seems to think managing day to day issues as they arise is enough, having no leaders believing in anything at high level.
January 11, 2023
It would be interesting to hear the rationale for including railways other than publicity at the current time.
All emergency services and caring services where lives could be threatened are reasonable for this, but railways just plays straight into the unions hands – well done Rishi and Co!!!
January 11, 2023
The same argument about lives being threatened can be made for teachers and others in the education sector.
January 11, 2023
“……and were copying practices in some other European countries.”
So …. the UK picks a European country where the outcome has been acceptable ….. and copies it’s practices ?
January 11, 2023
Sir John, if these proposals were set out in the last Conservative Party manifesto I would have the issues would have been carefully thought through, with draft legislation included? All NHS, Ambulance, Nurses and Doctors should not be allowed to strike just like Army, Police and Fire. I do not think this can be applied to railway employees.
January 12, 2023
Railway employers should have their subsidies removed so they can’t pay their shareholders for any day they are not operating. If they go under so be it.
January 15, 2023
Laughably naive under a Tory government who underwrite company profits on strike days, but not wages.
When the railways goes bust would it be just shut down or replaced by another company?
How do you do you job with this level of thinking?
January 11, 2023
Having served in HM Forces (with no right to strike), I don’t see the problem of insisting that Unions provide a minimum level of cover in life-threatening situations. I never saw lack of union representation as an issue. If people shouted at you, so what? It was the Army, we just got with the job at hand.
However, in retrospect and given how poorly sucessive Governments have treated our armed forces over the years, I can understand why the Unions would be unwilling to trust Government. I suspect that both our Armed Forces & Police have been seen as soft targets by the Treasury. The so-called ‘Covenant’ hasn’t provided great family accomodation recently for instance. So whilst I have no love of the Left’s mentality – I don’t have much faith in Government to stand by their commitments either…
January 15, 2023
Put ip and shut up. Did you think that being in the army was like a holiday camp?
January 11, 2023
When all the emotion posturing and points scoring stop and common sense once again raises it head above the parapet a few facts should then be accepted by all sides.
The existing wages when taken across the whole working sectors the differences do not justify the demands being made.
This could well be the last throw of the dice for the unions as technology advances cannot be ignored or stopped which will result in a reduction of hands on labour requirements. Don’t fight it, embrace it.
The railways do not have enough passengers.
NHS has too many patients, excessive structures of managers, still operating in the 1950s.
Civil and public services monolithic structures with too many layers of management.
If the government would accept their lack of control of both legal and illegal immigration compounds the problems and a benefits system that is too easily abused.
With the suicidal drive for NZ placing more restrictions. If trains cannot attract customers then build up sites to take off containers at sea ports and get them to central hub locations to reduce HGV travelling times.
If Sweden can stop illegal immigration why do we find it so difficult.
The answers are out there but not where the majority of politicians and union officials want to explore.
January 11, 2023
A firm line needs to be taken against Union inspired strike action ; after all – who is in charge of running the country ?. Margaret Thatcher faced a similar problem in the early days of her reign and succeeded . Control was re-established and her popularity enhanced . A similar situation exists today and the Government must stand united in its approach . The public have a right to complain but there are limits to how far its protests can go . If cracks show in management then opportunists will take advantage of any perceived weakness .
January 11, 2023
As you point out, this legislation needs to be very specific if it is going to work – we’ve seen far too much lately that is ill defined and is left open to interpretation. It may be hard to be specific in some areas, but before fines are imposed there needs to be clear cut detailed reasons why.
All of this could so easily be resolved, as I’ve said before, by scrapping national bargaining and introducing Annual assessments for individuals.
I’m quite certain statistics and other information is already kept on performance by state employees, so that shouldn’t add to administration as long as it wasn’t made too bureaucratic.
BUT is HMG looking for real solutions – or do they prefer to keep the status quo?
January 11, 2023
Pay, pensions and other conditions of employment in the public sector should not be better than those in the private sector. Workers have every right to strike, but employers should also have the right upon giving a 48 hour return to work ultimatum to replace their employees with people who are willing to accept the employment conditions on offer.
January 11, 2023
They are struggling to find people willing to accept the conditions now. That’s why there’s 50,000 nurse vacancies and nurses are deciding that a career change to working for a supermarket chain is a good move.
January 12, 2023
Perhaps our NHS should be run by ex-supermarket managers instead of the NHS managers who seem unable to do their jobs because their terms are much lower and they can’t offer their workers anything like the job satisfaction. Similar shifts and work patterns but half the perks.
If people want more pay today and less pension tomorrow like supermarket workers have then perhaps the NHS needs to offer both packages, one with more money today and a 3% employer contributed workplace pension.
January 11, 2023
The Governmentās proposals are an attack upon workersā rights and perhaps justifiably so but there ought to be some compensating mechanism (perhaps arbitration by an independent body guided by historical comparisons etc.).
āThe Bill implies action for damages against Unions not ensuring the minimum standard, but it will need clarificationā – indeed, for what is in prospect but insolvent unions, the prudent having beforehand put assets into separate legal entities?
Minimum standards beyond those sufficient to cope when life is threatened will be hard to set and justify although we have the recent example of Joe āunion basherā Biden outlawing rail strikes by reason of the extent of economic damage they could have done. There perhaps ought to be some sort of national interest test that does not forbid all strike action but places a limit on duration.
As a possibly dangerous alternative, given the purpose of strikes is normally to place pressure on employers through depriving them of revenue, perhaps some arrangement whereby revenue (adjusted for wages paid) on days that otherwise would be strike days is surrendered? For the public sector a reduction in grant might not work though withdrawal of bonuses and honours awards could.
January 15, 2023
Here’s a radical idea.
Instead of robbing them of the right to strike stop cutting and pay a fair days wage for a fair days pay.
January 11, 2023
I am having difficulty seeing how this legislation could be enforced. If the government was serious about people not inconveniencing others then the various ” ….. rebellions” are also an obvious issue they should address.
January 11, 2023
The only way this can be enforced is by fining the Union if its members refuse to provide the minimum guaranteed service level.
January 15, 2023
Not the employers such as railways when they cancel trains?
January 11, 2023
We need to rid ourselves of all the leglisation arond strikes.
Withdrawing labour is a perfectly good way of using market forces.
Unfortunatley, leglislation frustrates the whole process by providing protection to strikers and having counter legislation to protect the employers.
Get rid of all the legislation and let the market do its thing.
January 11, 2023
Good afternoon.
Sorry, off topic
But what is it I am hearing about Digital ID’s ?
It is a government website, so should be OK.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-digital-identity-attributes-trust-framework-updated-version/uk-digital-identity-and-attributes-trust-framework-alpha-version-2
January 11, 2023
How nice, so in future unless I have a digital identity I won’t be able to renew my prescription, enter a hospital for treatment (already I have to prove my id at the front entrance), buy a premium bond or leave the country. Oh, and take money out of a bank or will there only be ‘digital money’? I will be as free as the typical cow in a cattle shed, who has her digital identity stapled to her ear.
January 11, 2023
+1
Digital ID! No way, thanks very much!
January 11, 2023
ā¦and this government is reporting today its support for crypto currency āstablecoinā ā weāre doomed I tell yeah
January 12, 2023
Is ‘enabling people to prove who they are or something about themselves easily and securely’. A bad thing? We have IDs NI cards, driving licences, passports, school dinner cards, credit and debit cards, phone face recognition. We are not going to be able to hold this back, we need to ensure we mitigate the abuses that could take place.
January 20, 2023
Thanks for that, a-tracy.
And I would bet that the MBs, Iagos, Sharons, GCs, and all people with their knickers in a twist have not answered last summerās public enquiry about this project of future digital IDs. Talk of useless comments by useless ācontributorsā. But thatās a charm of this blog, isnāt it?
January 11, 2023
We’re now told that the Covid Fraud which Sunak is directly responsible for is Ā£4.5 BILLION and the total liability for all Covid loan schemes is Ā£15.8 BILLION.
Presumably the billionaire Sunak will be writing a cheque to HM Treasury to pay back this money which HE squandered.
January 11, 2023
His mother was a pharmacist and his father was a doctor, don’t you know?
It’s clearly a California thing to have to use your parents’ story to forward your career and make money.
January 11, 2023
What is that about nuclear decommissioning?
Does Sunak or someone else, want to decommission nuclear energy at a faster rate?
If so, I am now quite sure we live in a lunatic asylum.
January 11, 2023
Blame Bailey and his civil servants for this ridiculous inflation and the “cure” which has brought us into a long and deep recession which will prove to be significantly worse than the problem.
January 11, 2023
To take this all to the logical conclusion the government needs to conscript everyone in key services into the Army and then order them to work. That should fix things (?).
January 11, 2023
It’s ridiculous Parliament should go to the trouble of mandating pay review boards, arms-length delegation and several expensive tiers of management, and then have to do the managers’ and the pay boards’ jobs for them.
Once the pay boards are established as being impartial, their verdicts should be legally unassailable.
Essential services may be ostensibly striking for more pay, but the strikes are being deliberately fomented and scheduled by the Labour-supporting union bosses so as to cause the maximum economic damage to the country and unseat the government. Of course parliament must take away the ‘right to strike’ (or to engage in any kind of industrial action) for these essential services. ‘Minimum service levels’ are unachievable, as you point out. Any union activists forced to work during a strike will simply pretend to do so.
January 15, 2023
The iay boards are not impartial and you know it.
January 11, 2023
Oh, so we’re copying the EU are we? Quelle surprise! Another thing to keep us in line with them from a Brexit shy party.
On the subject of allowing claims against the Unions, will that also allow claims against the government for the services they have ruined over the last 15 years and the normal low grade service they are providing? This is the state of normal, not strikes which are a rarity in recent times. Good luck with trying to enforce it – you will have even more strikes than you have initiated now and probably a general one. Is that the aim of this brain dead administration?
January 11, 2023
In any other business if your staff donāt do the work you donāt get paid and the customers donāt pay. Where is our tax rebate for services not provided every time things come to a stop, where is our tax rebate for railway subsidies on a per day basis, I hope the subsidy is being reduced on a daily basis.
We have a gun at our head by all these civil servants. What did you expect when you put the NLW up by 6.6% (and 9.8% for younger workers) and 9.7% in April 2024. Seriously didnāt your government and the low pay commission understand differentials would have to match? Labour want to push the NLW up further still Ā£15 per hour, it is as though weāre on a train at 100mph without a driver or crew.
Do these people not have friends and family in normal SME employment, self employment? Do they not see how business is contracting since the October half term? Theyāre going to crash us all. Youāre government is going to pay up any day soon and it will need to level it all across all public sector workers. I donāt know why we are being led this merry dance. 19% is just ridiculous. The whole increase should be no more than 6.6% for 2022.
January 15, 2023
This will of course apply to government fees, rent, fuel, mortage rates etc?
January 20, 2023
Bazman – Are you claiming government fees went up by more than 6.6%? Which services?
Rent – The government has confirmed that there will be A CAP on rent increases for social housing tenants across the country. This means that rents will increase by up to 7% from 1 April 2023. Do you know of any HAs or Councils that put in more than 6.6%
Dec 2022. The amount that a landlord can increase the rent must be realistic and reasonable. For example, if similar properties in the area are renting for Ā£500 /pm they couldn’t realistically expect to charge Ā£700/pm. A fair rent increase percentage in the UK is generally between 3-5% annually.20 Oct 2021
Mortgage rates – I don’t know anyone paying more than 5% mortgage rates?.
January 11, 2023
Am very angry about you bunch – you had it all in the EU – now you’re tearing each other apart
I saw it all before in the 60’s 70’s
At that time it was called English sickness- I ask what about a bunch of whingers. Too bad Jim Neill Galway Ireland
January 11, 2023
Sir John, have you seen this report explaining that the government has FAILED to mandate the use of the Rough stotage facility: https://www.ft.com/content/d4e9b2d0-6eda-4ba8-bbd5-5b01ed349b05
The government is NOT listening to you. It is NOT interested in energy security, or cheaper energy, or self-sufficiency. Why do you remain in a party that does NOT do a single thing that you advise? Every day I read another report setting out how the government is BETRAYING BRITAIN.
The latest treason is the report that the government has CAPITULATED to the EU and will continue to impose bureaucratic controls on goods moving WITHIN THE UK (from GB to NI) and will provide all the details to the EU. No other country in the WORLD does this just to please a hostile foreign power. That’s why I will NOT be voting Conservative next time. The Conservative Party needs to be destroyed. Do yourself a favour and switch to a genuinely patriotic and conservative party.
January 11, 2023
When we are in effect back in the EU and under its control, in all but admission, which the Tory party is working towards, Sir John will remain obsessively loyal to the party, notwithstanding the betrayal.
Even when our country is wholly destroyed in economic and political freedoms he will stay with them, deluding himself and betraying us.
Why do so many of you think he will do any different? He will always be a Tory no matter how dangerous it becomes.
January 12, 2023
I too would always vote Conservative rather than Labour. There is no Labour M.P. I agree much with but there are some Conservative M.P.s who I often agree with. Nor is the Reform Party any answer for ‘real Conservatives’.
January 11, 2023
The corrupt Tory government spent Ā£28bn on the, frankly stupid, track and trace. But when nurses ( remember banging your pots and pans ‘coz the nurses were so wonderful ) can’t get a decent pay rise in an environment of rampant inflation. Then shut the ‘track and trace’ system down. Ā£28 billion down the toilet.
By the way, inflation that was caused by the, frankly stupid, Rushi Sunak ( World Economic place-man ) while he was Chancellor. I can barely balance my own bank account, but in 2020 even I knew that a five fold increase in QE at the same time as shutting down industry was a stupid idea.
Tory government, stupid, stupid, stupid.
January 11, 2023
How does striking solve any of the problems they are moaning about? If that don’t like their conditions then leave. The trouble us most of them won’t find the cushy conditions and pay elsewhere. I hope none of their family get taken ill.
January 12, 2023
They are already doing it, which is why we don’t have full nurses and doctors cover in the hospitals and a shortage of GP’s. If it was all so cushy these services would be over subscribed with waiting lists to get in. Don’t get ill period. The service has been going down for donkey’s years, not just a few weeks of strikes due mostly to inept governments. What about a law to enforce the govt to provide a decent service which we all pay for?
January 15, 2023
Many are leaving and there is a huge number of vacancies that cannot be filled, but dont let reality bother you