The government has announced it will repeal anti-strike laws that mandate ‘minimum service levels’ during industrial action.
The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act will be repealed when the government passes its forthcoming Employment Rights Bill, expected to begin the parliamentary process in October 2024.
The policy of this government is that minimum service levels (MSLs) unduly restrict the right to strike and undermine good industrial relations.
The controversial legislation, impacting all of Great Britain, was passed in July 2023 by the former Conservative government. It gave employers in ambulance, fire and rescue and border services new powers to force people to work on strike days by issuing controversial ‘work notices’.
Since its introduction, UNISON has criticised MSLs for ‘putting politics above public services’. Over the past year, UNISON has fought, alongside the TUC and other unions, to oppose this anti-strike, anti-union law.
In January this year, UNISON joined thousands of other trade union members in Cheltenham at a ‘protect the right to strike’ rally that protested MSLs.
Christina McAnea joins UNISON members in Cheltenham in January 2024.
Thanks to the efforts of UNISON and other unions, no work notices have been issued since the MSLs legislation was passed last summer.
The government has since indicated that, although the legislation will remain in place until it is formally repealed, employers should ‘seek alternative mechanisms for dispute resolution, including voluntary agreements, rather than imposing minimum service levels’.
The government has also made clear that, following UNISON’s successful judicial review in August 2023, employers are also prohibited from recruiting agency staff to cover striking workers on industrial action days.
Commenting on the new government’s decision to repeal MSLs, UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea said: “This was a terrible law. It’s great the government is ditching it so early on. Good riddance to a bad law.
“This legislation should have never reached the statute book. No one wanted minimum service levels, only a spiteful government watching power drain away and desperate to shore up its rapidly disappearing support.
“No employer used the law because doing so would have ramped up tensions, prolonged strikes and risked the wrath of the public.”
