From Yahoo News – by Hamish Morrison
WORKERS’ rights in the UK have been degraded to the extent the country now ranks among despotic regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Vietnam, according to new global ratings.
The UK has dropped in International Trade Union Confederation’s (ITUC) annual report on workers’ rights, falling from a rating of three – countries where the ITUC considers there to be a “regular violation of rights” – to four, where the confederation says there is are “systemic” violations.
Joining the UK in the number four rating are countries including Qatar – which faced high-profile criticism for its treatment of migrant workers in the lead-up to last year’s World Cup – and Oman, which is an absolute monarchy where criticism of the government is illegal.
The report said: “In the United Kingdom, union busting, attempts to introduce legislation curtailing the right to strike and protest, and violations of collective bargaining agreements have become systematic and led to the country’s rating dropping from three to four.”
Westminster’s planned crackdown on the right of workers to go on strike is likely to have played a part in Britain’s drop in ranking as the Government edges closer to further restrict trade unions’ ability to take industrial action.
The minimum service levels bill currently working its way through the UK Parliament will see the Government enabled to enforce certain amounts of employees to attend work even if their trade union has a mandate to strike, in a bid to curb the level of disruption industrial action can cause . . .
Placing the UK alongside Gulf states in the international workers’ rights ranking is real food for thought!