UK union leader’s mass defiance warning over ‘attempt to ban strikes’

Matt Wrack of the Fire Brigades Union: ‘It’s the biggest attack on workers’ rights in postwar Britain.’ Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

New government anti-strike laws for public sector workers could prompt the start of a campaign of mass defiance not seen since the 1970s, a union leader has warned.

Matt Wrack, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said the minimum service levels legislation passed earlier this year was effectively a ban on strikes, and the biggest attack on the rights of workers since the second world war.