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We need strong, fighting unions

Defend our unions

Kill the Trade Union Bill

n Monday (2 November) thousands

of trade unionists will descend on
parliament to protest against the
Tories Trade Union Bill.
It is the biggest attack on our right to
strike and organise for generations. The
bill is a huge attack on a most basic civil
liberty, the right to withdraw our labour.
New ballot thresholds will make
national strikes all but impossible.
Picketing will be criminalised and
employers allowed to hire agency staff to
break strikes, trade union facility time cut
and unions right to fund political parties
limited.
The Tories know that their plans for
years more of cuts and austerity depend
on stifling opposition.
They also know that the unions have
the potential to be their most powerful
opponent.

Worried

And its no wonder they are worried

about opposition. Since the election
hundreds of thousands have joined
protests against Tory austerity.
The election of Jeremy Corbyn as
Labour leader has given hope to people
across Britain who want to see some real
opposition for a change.
And this week weve seen that while
the Tories are nasty they are also weak.
The revolt in the Lords has seen George
Osborne backpedaling over his attack on
tax credits.
The cuts in tax credits will drive many
working families into poverty. But the
climbdown shows the Tories are far from
invincible.
If the movement against tax
credits takes to the streets (the
Peoples Assembly plans protests on
24 November) we can beat back this
outrageous attack completely.
In the same week as they attack tax
credits, the Tories have stood by as
thousands of steel workers jobs have gone

and the whole industry is under threat.

They were quick enough to bail out
the bankers when the crash hit, why cant
they step in to save steel?
Its crucial that our unions mobilise
alongside the anti-austerity movement to
defend tax credits and to save jobs in steel.
A national demonstration for steel
would put the Tories under real pressure
and give a focus to everyone who wants
to fight back.
But in the end to defend jobs, pay and
public services we need strikes, thats why
the Tories want to make it so difficult for
the unions to take action.

Lobby

Everyone who can should get to the

TUC lobby on Monday 2 November
(from 1pm, Westminster Central Hall).
In London that evening a
demonstration has been called by the
Trade Union Co-ordinating Group
(TUCG) at 6pm at Parliament.
Outside London the TUCG is calling
for local protests and all of us should be
organising activity in our own workplaces
against the bill on 2 November.
At the TUC conference in September
unions voted to back generalised strikes
against the bill and to support any union
that found itself outside the law if the
bill is passed through parliament.

Those words have to be turned into

action. We need to mobilise against the
bill (and its third reading sometime in
mid-November).
But if its passed our movement needs
to be prepared to break the law, before
the law is used to break the poor.

What you can do

on 2 November
Join the TUC mass lobby of
parliament (from 1pm Westminster
Central Hall lobby of Parliament
starts at 2.30pm).
TUCG demonstration 6pm,
Parliament Square.
Organise a protest in your town or
city and/or your workplace.

New Unite the Resistance pamphlet

Fight the
anti-union laws

With a foreword by shadow chancellor

John McDonnell.
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info@uniteresist.org
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General 28/10/15