Keeping Effective Trade Unionism Illegal

So I get home from supporting a strike (pictured) to read that New Labour even in its death throes is holding out against workers' right to strike.

Existing law makes us jump through hoop after hoop to even hold a legal strike, while employers have every right they need to undermine workers' action. London Underground, for example, will keep the three striking stations open tomorrow with managers and admin staff hastily issued with the necessary certificates whether or not they are genuinely competent to run a railway station safely. We have to give them advance warning of our tactics; they have to give us nothing of the sort. They can sack Jerome for nothing more than refusing to be a punchbag at work; our only recourse is strike action, and then they get to render it ineffective.

And that is just how New Labour wants to keep it. Even as they head like a juggernaut with failed brakes towards electoral defeat, they still fear effective legal trade unionism more than they fear a Tory government.

And yet, when you would think the unions could do nothing other than denounce Blair/Brownism and force an about-turn in their disastrous anti-working-class policies, what do their leaders do? Issue a joint statement with the Labour leadership welcoming the outcome of the policy forum. Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said: "We have moved forward on a package that covers a wide range of areas that the British electorate wants to see addressed."

It is a really over-cooked cliche, but this really is the stuff(ing) of turkeys issuing a joint statement with Bernard Matthews welcoming Christmas.