Labour has clear conference policies on repealing ALL the anti-union laws. It should fight for them!

The Labour leadership is making a series of policy announcements about workers’ rights, coming out of the “Workplace Power” review overseen by Deputy Leader Angela Rayner and Shadow Secretary of State for Employment Rights Andy MacDonald. On Twitter, in response to a question from Momentum, and in an article on LabourList, MacDonald said that “Labour

Labour Women’s Conference says: repeal all anti-union laws!

The Labour Party Women’s Conference, held online in late June, passed a motion demanding: “Repeal all anti- trade union laws and create new rights and freedoms for trade unions to help them win a better deal for working people.” This was part of a composite motion on “women and the economy”, which can be viewed

Angela Rayner: “Repeal the anti-union laws of the 1980s”

In September 2014, Labour Party deputy leader Angela Rayner (then an official of public-sector union Unison, not yet an MP) spoke at a Manchester Trades Council public meeting about the need to repeal the many anti-strike/anti-trade union laws introduced by the Tories in the 1980s and ’90s, right back to Thatcher’s first Employment Act in 1980.  She wrote a

Composite motion for Momentum policy primary

UPDATE: The Momentum policy primary is now open. For more info, including on how to vote, click here. Free Our Unions, the Fire Brigades Union, and two local Momentum groups (Brent and Southampton) submitted similar motions to the “policy primary” Momentum is currently running to determine which motions it will encourage supporters to submit to

Model motion for Labour Party conference

Free Our Unions encourages supporters active in the Labour Party to submit motions based on the below model text to their local parties, for submission to Labour Party conference 2021. The deadline for CLPs to submit motions to the conference is 13 September. If the motion is endorsed by your branch or CLP, email us

A letter to the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs

Dear comrades, We’re writing in response to your recent pamphlet Winning the Future: Socialist Responses to the Coronavirus Crisis. Well done on producing it – it’s a contribution to the urgent task of raising the labour movement’s ambitiousness and confidence in difficult times. In the spirit of your call for the pamphlet to be “widely

Labour Unions consultation

Labour Unions, the network of trade unions which affiliate to the Labour Party, is conducting a consultation on its future campaigning, and is inviting trade unionists to make suggestions for campaigns. Free Our Unions encourages supporters, particularly those in Labour-affiliated unions (although members of non-affiliated unions can also participate), to respond to the consultation, and

Labour policy on the anti-union laws: build back better!

By Sacha Ismail At a recent meeting organised by the Labour Representation Committee, I asked speaker Laura Pidcock, former shadow Secretary of State for Employment Rights, about Labour’s policy on the right to strike during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. I asked why, in terms of scrapping anti-strike laws, the party generally limited itself to repealing the

The Democrats, Labour, and “secondary boycotts”

Keir Starmer has praised Joe Biden and urged Labour to learn from the Democrats’ victory in the US presidential election. Starmer should learn from the proposals on workers’ rights the Democrats made. The Democratic Party platform promised to “prioritize passing the PRO Act and restoring workers’ rights, including the right to launch secondary boycotts”. The US term

Northern Ireland Assembly Member proposes “Trade Union Freedom Bill”

Gerry Carroll, a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, has tabled a private member’s bill proposing the abolition of all Thatcher-era anti-union and anti-strike laws. The power to alter these laws is devolved to the Stormont Assembly. This is the first time any MLA has proposed amending them. Although many Free Our Unions supporters are