Rishi Sunak considered banning thousands of workers from joining a union, according to leaked government emails detailing proposals described as potentially the “biggest attack on workers’ rights and freedoms” for decades., reveal that the prime minister contemplated banning Border Force staff from trade union membership under its anti-strike legislation announced last Thursday.
The emails, drawn up by officials and lawyers in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and shared last month with senior civil servants, presented three models for Sunak to consider to form the government’s anti-strike laws. Another model, a “prison service-style ban on striking”, would replicate restrictions on prison officers who are also banned from industrial action with possible concessions such as a new independent pay review body.– was legislation to enforce “minimum service levels” in public sectors such as the NHS, with employers able to sue unions and sack staff if minimum standards are not met.
The emails, however, show that the most extreme model – banning workers from trade union membership – was rejected only because it might “be difficult to justify” because the European Convention on Human Rights guaranteed UKBecause of this, civil servants felt the minimum service levels model was their “preferred option”.