PBP Derry councillor Shaun Harkin at Housing Executive workers picket line last November
Said Cllr Harkin:”The Tories are responding to the rising wave of workers resistance with yet more authoritarian anti-trade union legislation.
“Sunak’s predecessors engineered the NHS crisis over many years to fill the bank accounts of corporate profiteers but want to blame workers for the mess they’ve created.
“The Westminster Minimum Service Levels Bill isn’t about protecting the public and public services.
“Sunak’s henchmen want to crush all resistance to their privatisation project to further gut public services and public access.
“The Stormont Executive has been complicit in the Tory assault on trade unions and public services for decades.
“All five of the main parties, Unionist, Nationalist and Alliance, were content to keep Thatcher-era anti-trade union laws on Stormont’s books.
“When People Before Profit MLAs managed to overcome entrenched conservatism to introduce legislation repealing Thatcher’s rules, it was disgracefully voted down in the Assembly by the DUP, UUP and Alliance.
“If Stormont is ever revived it must commit to ditching anti-workers rights laws.
“We should not be distracted from the need to build-up support for strikes by the DUP’s divisive antics or hot-air promises from the rest of Stormont’s establishment about what a restored Executive will do.
“Solidarity, strike action and large-scale mobilisations are our key weapons to resist authoritarian legislation, pay cuts and the erosion of public services.”
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