Trade Union Rights

Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution – in the Senedd at 2:52 pm on 5 October 2022.

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Photo of Mick Antoniw Mick Antoniw Labour 2:52, 5 October 2022

Thank you very much for the question, and you covered a number of areas that we have discussed and debated in this Chamber on many occasions. Would I like to see employment law devolved? I think employment law is moving to a situation where more and more of it needs to be devolved. The struggle we have had in terms of how we actually legislate in terms of those economic areas, trade union areas, and so on, has always been one where we've had to tread very, very carefully. The Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill, of course, creates what I think is very innovative legislation. I think it is very important in that we would become the first part of the UK to create a statutory framework, a legal framework for partnership between trade unions, Government and business. And I think the partnership arrangements that we have had and developed over the years are an example of why our relationship with organised labour has been so much more effective, and why, in fact, we've avoided strikes within Wales that have occurred in the UK. 

Can I also say that this is a response, obviously, to a number of industrial actions that are taking place at the moment, all of which have been obtained with scales of voting that go way above any of those barriers? So, the question is: what is it really about? It's about the UK Government, which, again, is seeking ways to denude and disempower trade unions, and what has become clear during the COVID period and earlier is, of course, the important role that trade unions have played in maintaining standards and conditions of working people. I think it also has a very significant role in terms of the democracy we talk about, and the role of law that we talk about within our society and that we want to have as a standard within Wales. You want to look around the world at any dictatorship. You can judge the quality of democracy, I believe, in any country by the extent of freedom that its trade unions have—the ability of people to organise and stand up to government. Sometimes, that means organisations taking actions that cause inconvenience to others, but it's a fundamental precept of democracy. And I think any move in terms of this particular direction would be anti-democratic. It would be an increasing move, as we have seen with the Tory Government, towards authoritarianism, and I think it's something that we would want to resist at every opportunity possible.