Vile Tory Scum Blackmail the Working Poor into not Striking

To strike is a right – stop trying to deter the low-paid from exercising it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...P=FBCNETTXT9038

Here we go again. The government is talking tough and this time it wants to punish low-paid workers for exercising the basic right to take strike action.

Voting to go on strike is not a decision working people take lightly and is always accompanied by a strong sense of injustice at work. The impact of losing a day's pay is significant, not least for those in the lowest paid jobs who are already on the tightest budgets.

To suggest that benefits encourage people to go on strike is ridiculous. The amount that any worker on strike will lose in pay will be far more than the top-up they get from the tax credit system. And it is also offensive to hard-pressed workers to imply that taking strike action is intrinsically a bad choice – this fundamental right, which can only be exercised after a democratic ballot, is a rarely used yet important way to rebalance power between the employer and employed.

The government's intention to limit benefits for strikers, however, is more about rhetoric than real impact. Under the present system, workers on strike are not entitled to jobseeker's allowance anyway, and while they can continue to receive working tax credit (WTC) their award is not increased to take account of the reduced income they experience while on strike. In addition, after 10 days of consecutive action they can lose their entire WTC award.

Under universal credit, a real-time system will automatically take account of reductions in claimants' incomes and factor in small increases in monthly payments accordingly. The government's proposal therefore appears to be that claimants will continue to receive universal credit but will not have their payments adjusted for any reduction in income that arises if they are on strike. This is therefore exactly the same as the current situation, other than for those workers who are on strike for more than 10 days, who will be somewhat better off. So it transpires that this announcement is not the red meat for the right that the government's spin doctors would have them believe.

But the decision to pass up the opportunity to address this universal credit anomaly, and help low-paid workers who suffer income fluctuations as a result of taking strike action, is mean-spirited. The way it has been presented takes sides by clearly aiming to discourage some of the most vulnerable workers from exercising their right to strike.

The system also seems likely to increase administrative burdens on employers – not only will they be faced with reporting every income fluctuation to the new universal credit computer system, but now they will also have to provide separate information to HMRC on whether any income reductions are the result of industrial action. It may not be intended, but this adds up to a state record of anyone striking. This has serious civil liberties implications.

And it will create more bureaucracy. A proper process will need to be set up for employees to appeal their employers' assessments, as without proper enforcement, use of this code could simply provide a convenient way for unscrupulous employers to deny their workers the benefits to which they are entitled.

So what's the upshot? The main impact of this policy is that low-paid workers on strike will continue to lose out under benefit rules, making difficult times that bit harder for themselves and their families. And although the government has oversold the initiative in a desperate attempt to please its right flank, its decision to do so speaks volumes about its high-handed disregard for the real lives, fears and grievances of hard-pressed low-income families.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The right to be a member of a Trade Union is a fundamental Human Right, Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states this...

(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his (or her) interests.

Related Articles also point out....

Article 4 - No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms

Article 20(1) - Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association (this right to assembly obviously includes strike action)

Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights states...

Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

So, it's pretty clear, isn't it... People have a fundamental right to join unions, they have a fundamental right to free and peaceful assembly, which would include legal strike actions... So, why is the Government effectively blackmailing the poorest workers in this land that if they take up the fundamental human right to strike, then they will be penalised by having their working tax credits taken away from them... Not only is this immoral, it makes no logical sense.. Workers are taking strike action in order to improve their pay and work conditions in the main, so, logically, surely if they are being paid more by their employers, surely it follows that there would be less of a need on their part to rely on the state to "top up" their income....

But the Tories and the Neo-Libera$ts are not interested in such clear, simple logic it seems.. They think that people should just be grateful to have a job and put up with whatever bullshit their employers heaps onto them... Add Mandatory Workfare into the mix (which is clearly a violation of Article 4 of the Universal Declaration and Article 4 of the EU Convention too) and the overall impression I get is that the Tories and the Neo-Libs will only be happy when workers are basically Serfs and modern-day versions of Peasants....

This clearly has to be resisted. The facts are that as the power of unions has diminished, so has the value of workers' earnings and their spending power, oh, but of course, the Neo-Libs need people to keep consuming, so instead they brought the advent of "easy credit" and encouraged people to live beyond their means. Conversely, the earnings of the "Top Managers", Executives, etc, has sky-rocketed in the past 30 years. This is fact, you can look this up, there's plenty of research out there to back this up....