The Right to Strike

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:18 pm on 11 January 2023.

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Photo of Luke Fletcher Luke Fletcher Plaid Cymru 3:18, 11 January 2023

Today, I had the pleasure of co-sponsoring, with Carolyn Thomas, a drop-in event with Communication Workers Union members. As those who attended will know, what they had to say about Royal Mail's disregard for its employees was shocking: casualisation, pay cuts, hollowed-out conditions, even attempting to take away statutory sick pay, which is totally illegal, by the way—'Amazon on steroids', as one CWU member in Bridgend put it. Striking is central to protecting our services against this. It is central to the rights and bargaining powers of workers, and it is disgraceful, quite frankly, that, rather than actually address this systemic economic crisis, the Tories opt instead to attack workers.

It's clear to me, as it should be to everyone in this Chamber, that the rights of workers are not safe in the hands of Westminster. Workers can't continue to trust and rely on the goodwill or political make-up of Westminster, and as one CWU member put it to me, Wales might become the last bastion of fair work over the next few years. If the Government were serious about protecting workers' fundamental democratic right to strike, then the Government would support the devolution of employment law, so that we could ensure that those rights never come under attack again. Counsel General, will you?