Liz Truss has advised hanging employees to “get again to work” as she doubled down on her pledge to usher in measures to restrict industrial motion inside weeks of coming to energy.
The prime minister recommended {that a} deliberate wave of strikes by employees starting from practice drivers to barristers, risked holding the nation again through the hardest financial local weather in a era.
The belligerent method to the problem amid the price of dwelling disaster, which has led to elevated pay calls for, will additional antagonise commerce unions which have already launched authorized proceedings in opposition to new strike-breaking laws.
Tensions rose additional on Tuesday when rail employees introduced plans to strike on the eve of the Conservative celebration convention in Birmingham subsequent month, with Britain going through a wave of coordinated industrial motion from different sectors this autumn.
Truss, within the US on her first overseas journey as prime minister, was requested whether or not she was nonetheless dedicated to bringing in measures to restrict industrial motion inside 30 days of coming to energy, after the plan was derailed by the mourning interval for the Queen.
“We’re dedicated to bringing in laws for minimal service ranges on rail as quickly as potential,” she stated, earlier than admitting that the deadline might must be pushed again to as late as the top of November.
The prime minister added: “My message is: I would like this nation to achieve success. And which means folks with the ability to get to work. Individuals with the ability to get on with their enterprise, folks with the ability to transfer tasks ahead.
“So I might encourage rail employees to get again to work. There’s little doubt we’re going through robust occasions as a rustic; I wish to take a constructive method with the unions, however I might inform them to get again to work.”
The chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, and the enterprise secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg, have additionally repeatedly promised motion to weaken unions’ energy.
Eleven commerce unions, led by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), have sought permission for a judicial overview of recent legal guidelines permitting firms to make use of company employees to interrupt strikes – laws they argue is a “broad daylight” assault on the appropriate to take industrial motion.
Truss denied she was planning to tear up EU laws that defend employees’ rights, such because the restrict on hours within the working week and the minimal variety of vacation days, as her authorities tries to make the UK extra aggressive and increase development.
“What we’re speaking about is having the appropriate laws for Britain,” she advised reporters. “That isn’t about eradicating employees’ rights and vacation days. However there are a selection of the EU laws that aren’t working for Britain and that we have to do issues in another way.”
She added: “In 2016, folks voted to depart the EU. It’s now 2022. What I’ve pledged is that by the top of 2023, all these EU guidelines might be off the statute books and we could have our personal guidelines.”