By Louis Goss
A COALITION of trade unions have launched a legal challenge against the government, over claims its new law, allowing companies to bring in agency workers as strikebreakers, breaches the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) and violates the UK’s Brexit trade deal.
The challenge comes after the government last week overturned laws forbidding companies from hiring angency staff to break strikes, by allowing them to call in temporary workers on short notice.
Acting on behalf of twelve trade unions – including Unite, RMT, and GMB – Thompsons Solicitors have written to business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, claiming the new law violates Article 11 of the ECHR.
Article 11 of the ECHR protects the right to form trade unions in enshring the freedom of assembly and association into law.
The UK’s Brexit agreement further entrenched Britain’s commitment to ECHR into law, after it first signed up to the convention in 1951.
The business secretary now has 14 days to respond to the trade union law firm, before a judicial claim is filed.
The UK is set to face a wave of industrial action in the coming months, amid calls for pay rises that match soaring inflation of more than nine per cent.
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