Union barons will be able to order strikes under Labour’s new laws – BUT only if 25% of workers agree

Union barons will have the freedom to ‘ransom the country’ under planned laws that would make it much easier for them to order crippling strikes.

The proposals would allow militant barons to call strikes even if they were supported by only a quarter of workers.

There would also be no minimum attendance requirement for workplace votes.

Currently, for industrial action to be legal, at least half of union members must vote. Forty percent must also be in favor of strikes.

But under the review, authored by Angela Rayner and Jonathan Reynolds, these thresholds would be removed.

Minister for Trade and Commerce and Chairman of the Board of Trade Jonathan Reynolds arrives in Downing Street

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner arrives in Downing Street, London, for a Cabinet meeting

The Deputy Prime Minister and the Business Minister have pushed ahead with the proposals, despite admitting in the official document setting them out that ‘a return to legislation almost thirty years old may not meet the demands of a modern economy reflects.’

It apparently undermines the government’s claim to be ‘pro-growth’ and ‘pro-business’.

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘It’s terrifying. But this shouldn’t surprise anyone.

‘The unions are Labour’s paymasters and this is just the latest example of ministers deferring to them and doing their job.

“This is a reward for all the donations they have given Labor over the years.

“If we are not careful, we are heading towards undoing all the lessons we learned in the 1970s, and the unions could simply ransom the country and destroy the economy without any real mandate.”

Details of the planned overhaul were leaked from the government on Monday, amid a wider backlash over Ms Rayner’s workers’ rights bonus, which will cost companies up to £5 billion a year.

They are now going for consultation.

Angela Rayner and Transport Minister Louise Haigh are close allies of the unions

The consultation document states: ‘The proposed changes mean that a union will need a simple majority of union members who responded to the ballot to vote in favor of the action.

‘For example, if a vote of 100 members was reached, with 25 voting in favor of industrial action and 15 voting against, the union would secure a legal mandate for action.’

Referring to the existing law, it adds: ‘Section 3 of the 2016 Act introduced a requirement to secure 40 per cent support in strike votes for six key public services.

‘This means that if 100 members are to be voted on, at least 50 must vote yes and at least 40 must vote yes… This requirement is being repealed through the Employment Rights Bill.’

The ‘important public services’ affected by the existing thresholds are education for children under 17, fire, health care, border security, transport and nuclear decommissioning.

They were enshrined by the Tories in the Trade Union Act 2016 to help protect the public from hard-left union bosses.

For example, a planned nurses’ strike in June 2023 fell through because only 43 percent of Royal College of Nursing members voted.

But this would have gone ahead under the changes because a majority of the 43 percent voted in favor of industrial action.

Ms Rayner and Transport Secretary Louise Haigh, who was spotted in Whitehall this week with brighter red hair than normal after redying it, are close union allies.

The pair were praised by RMT railway union boss Mick Lynch at a hard-left Labor party conference last month when he described them as “leading individuals” who “need to be supported by the (union) movement.”

Both Cabinet ministers have secured thousands of pounds in donations from trade unions in recent years, while the Labor Party has accepted millions.

The proposals are part of a series of measures that would give greater powers to union bosses.

They also include an extension of the validity of a positive ballot paper to twelve months. Currently, union bosses must vote every six months to obtain a new strike mandate. This change will save them money and mean they can announce strikes in a year’s time instead of just six months.

The Business Department reached out for comment.