Threshold for strike ballot votes should be repealed, says union leader

Alan Jones, Press Association Industrial Correspondent

A union leader is calling for the immediate repeal of the threshold for votes in a ballot for strike action.

Matt Wrack, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers union, said the 50% threshold for a strike to be legal had always been used as a tool of union‑busting.

He said: “No other democratic process in Britain is subject to such a rule. MPs are not elected on a 50% turnout threshold. Councillors are not. The prime minister is not.

“If Westminster elections were held to the same standard imposed on workers, half the Cabinet would not be in office today and Labour would have far fewer MPs overall.

“The International Labour Organisation’s Freedom of Association Committee has been clear that requiring over half of all eligible workers to vote before a strike can be declared is ‘excessive’ and designed to hinder the right to strike, especially in large workplaces.

“The consequences are felt most sharply in sectors like education, where the workforce is overwhelmingly female.

“The threshold suppresses the collective voice of women who are already fighting for fair pay, safe conditions, and dignity at work.

“It is a structural barrier that entrenches inequality and is highly discriminatory.”

Mr Wrack said that after 14 years of Conservative governments using the law to weaken trade unions, Labour had promised a New Deal for Working People, and the repeal of the Trade Union Act 2016, including the 50% turnout threshold for industrial action ballots, adding: “For many in the trade union movement, these pledges were one of the strongest arguments for a Labour vote; the opportunity to actually repeal undemocratic and anti-worker laws.

“The 50% strike ballot threshold must be repealed immediately with no caveats or conditions.”

---

Get more trusted Welsh news

Choose Nation.Cymru as a preferred source in Google News to see more of our journalism.