The Free Our Unions campaign has written to all the Labour leadership and deputy leadership candidates asking them to sign the following pledge.
We will update this list as we receive replies:
(Clive Lewis: Signed)
(Emily Thornberry: )
(Jess Phillips: )
Rebecca Long-Bailey:
Lisa Nandy:
Keir Starmer:
Rosena Allin-Khan:
Richard Burgon:
Dawn Butler:
Ian Murray:
Angela Rayner:
The pledge:
In the words of Labour Party conference, “for unions to be effective, workers need an effective right to strike… the right to strike [is] essential to the labour movement’s ability to stand up for workers’ interests, and democracy…”
I commit to organising the party to mobilise, alongside the unions, to defeat the Tories’ new attacks on the right to strike.
I commit to ensuring the party actively argues, campaigns for and pledges to implement the unanimous Labour conference and TUC Congress policies of repealing all anti-trade union laws and replacing them with strong legal rights for workers and unions.
This must include workers’ right to strike/take industrial action at a time, by a process and for demands of their own choosing, including in solidarity with any other workers and for broader social and political goals, and to picket freely.