Just two weeks after the publication of the Trade Union Bill 2015, trade unions, MPs and labour movement organisations will come together at a special public meeting to review the legislation and decide how best to resist.

Following the publication of the Government’s Trade Union Bill on Wednesday 15th July 2015, the Institute of Employment Rights (IER) together with the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom (CTUF) and the Centre for Labour and Social Studies (CLASS) have called a special public meeting to review the Bill and discuss how best to resist.

Representatives from the TUC, FBU, RMT, PCS, UNITE, UNISON, CWU and UNISON, have agreed to join with IER experts John Hendy and Keith Ewing, together with MPs and others to determine what steps the labour movement needs to take to expose the unfair and undemocratic nature of the government’s proposals.

And the number of organisations supporting the meeting is expected to grow as the likely impact of the Bill becomes clear.

Carolyn Jones, Director of the IER said:

This is a blatant attack on the rights of workers and the freedoms of trade unions. The proposals on strike action will impose impossible thresholds for the majority of trade unions under our archaic, over restrictive and increasingly expensive balloting procedures. And for what? People increasingly understand that it is the Government’s austerity-led cuts that are undermining our public services not trade union action. Yet here we have a government elected by less than 25% of the electorate imposing voting thresholds on trade unions that have already been declared in breach of international law. The ideology behind these proposals needs to be exposed and the government plans resisted.

To that end a public meeting has been called to discuss the Bill on Wednesday 29th July at 6.00pm at Mander Hall, NUT, Mabledon Place, London, WC1H 9BD.

An initial analysis of the Bill by Keith Ewing was published in the Morning Star on Saturday 18th July 2015.