Tories’ balloting proposals

None of the current batch of MPs would have been returned to Parliament if the election threshold had been the same as the one now being put forward by the Conservatives for strike ballots in essential services, the GMB general union has pointed out.

Currently, for such a strike to be lawful, a majority of those voting in the strike ballot must be in favour.

Prime minister David Cameron recently pledged that, if returned to power in the 2015 general election, the Tories will introduce legislation to raise the strike balloting threshold in essential services to 50% of those eligible to vote.

The GMB emphasises that none of the current batch of MPs was supported by 50% of those eligible to vote in the last general election.

As the union says, if this is to be the “new test of democratic legitimacy, not a single MP”, including prime minister David Cameron, “passes the test”. The highest share of a constituency vote was the 46.1% taken by Lib Dem Tim Farron.

The proposals, castigated as deeply anti-democratic and authoritarian and described by general union Unite as a “repulsive double-standard”, fly in the face of the UK’s European treaty obligations.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said that “workers in Britain already face the toughest barriers to taking action to defend their living standards of almost any advanced democracy”.

She added: “This has helped turn our country into one of the most unequal, where billionaires coexist with food banks”.

http://union-news.co.uk/2014/05/load-ballots-unions-respond-camerons-strike-crackdown