In opposition, Sir Keir Starmer said he would repeal Tory measures to limit the right to strike, while keeping a distance between Labour and trade unions leading strikes. In office, he has moved swiftly to identify with the labour movement. Sir Keir’s deputy, Angela Rayner, this week issued instructions to disregard a Tory law that forces workers to provide a minimum level of service during strikes. Days earlier, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, awarded above-inflation pay rises to millions of public sector workers and settled a pay dispute with junior doctors to end industrial action.
These are necessary and welcome steps in the right direction, away from a model of employment that sought economic growth by making workers poorer. Under the Conservatives, Britain did not correct the imbalance of power between labour and capital. The need for change had been widely accepted. In 2019, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), hardly a hotbed of labour militancy, argued that collective bargaining needed to be “mobilised”.
