The United Campaign believes the current anti-trade union laws introduced by the Conservatives between 1979 and 1995 must be repealed. These laws are repressive and illegal and should be replaced with a framework of positive rights.

Tony Blair wrote on 31st March 1997, the changes his Government introduced, "would leave British law the most restrictive on trade unions in the western world." Believe him in this.

Labour laws now are worse than they were over 100 years ago. And changes in the world of work - with the fragmentation of organisations and the growth of non-standard work contracts - mean that the situation has continued to deteriorate for working people over the last quarter of a century.

Positive legislation in the field of industrial relations is required - laws which will protect trade unions from legal attacks, allow them to operate democratically and protect their members; laws which restore and extend collective bargaining, give each worker the right to strike and be represented by a union, protect workers against exploitation and provide the basis for a fairer and more just society.

Aims of the United Campaign

The United Campaign to Repeal the Anti-Trade Union Laws was founded on the 28th March 1998 at a Conference of 700 trade unionists, from General Secretaries to shop stewards. It was established to be a united non-sectarian trade union based campaign. Presently we have 24 national Unions affiliated to the Campaign and hundreds of trade union branches and regional bodies as well as individual members.

The objectives of the Campaign are set out below.

1. To secure the repeal of all anti-trade union laws.
2. To secure the introduction of new laws which enshrine instead:
   1. the rights of workers, without penalisation, to take industrial action (including solidarity action and action to secure recognition) and to be represented by their unions; and
   2. the rights of unions to draw up their own constitution free from state and employer interference and to be recognised by employers for collective bargaining where workers so wish it; so fulfilling the Uk's international law obligations under UN Covenants, the ILO Conventions, and the Social Charter of the Council of Europe.
3. To support workers and unions penalised or threatened by the anti-union laws or which adopt a policy of non-compliance with those laws.
4. To do anything lawful intended to further these objects or ancillary to the furtherance of them.

Further Information