We are promoting the following contemporary resolution for CLPs to send to Labour Party conference. Please submit to your CLP if possible, and in any case share and circulate widely.
For how contemporary resolutions work, see here. The deadline for submission is 14 September.
SUPPORTING WORKERS AND TRADE UNIONS
Conference notes that on 4 September workers at McDonald’s in Crayford and Cambridge, members of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union, went on strike for £10ph, guaranteed secure hours and union recognition. This is Britain’s first ever McDonald’s strike.
On 4-5 August Picturehouse cinema workers (part of Cineworld) struck again in their year-long dispute to win the Living Wage, decent maternity and sick pay, and union recognition.
We note the recent victories against outsourcing and casualisation won by cleaners at LSE and SOAS.
Labour wholeheartedly supports workers’ struggles. Our manifesto rightly said: “the most effective way to maintain good rights at work is collectively through a union”. Strong unions, freed from legal shackles and bolstered by positive legal rights, will be key to tackling poverty, insecurity and inequality, transforming society and creating an economy that works for the many, not the few.
For unions to be effective, workers need an effective right to strike. We note that conference 2015 voted unanimously to “legislate for strong rights to unionise, win recognition and collective bargaining, strike, picket and take solidarity action”.
Labour will
• Support all workers standing up for their rights.
• Integrate campaigns for policies like £10ph and scrapping zero hours contracts with supporting strikes and workers’ struggles.
• Scrap all anti-union laws and introduce a strong legal charter of workers’ rights – to unionise; win recognition and collective bargaining; strike, for purposes of workers’ own choosing including in solidarity with other workers and for political goals; and picket freely.
(250 words)
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