Trade Union Bill : Report Stage and Third Reading Update

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Letter to Branches





No. 723/15
Ref:
18th November 2015

To: All CWU Branches



Dear Colleague

Trade Union Bill – Report Stage and Third Reading Update

As you will have seen, the Trade Union Bill had its report stage and third reading in the House of Commons last week. As was expected, with the Conservative majority in the Commons, the Bill was voted through despite sizeable opposition from Labour and other parties and it will now go on to the House of Lords.

The first and second reading stages in the Lords are likely to be held before Christmas with subsequent stages expected to be held in the New Year. Given that no single party has a majority in the House of Lords, as we have seen with the recent developments on tax credits, these stages offer the best chance of securing changes to the Bill, though any amendments would need to be approved by the House of Commons in order to go through.

With the parliamentary process on-going and the possibility of amendments coming back to the House of Commons next year, it is extremely important that Branches continue to campaign against it by lobbying Conservative MPs and raising the issue in local media and elsewhere, to make clear the strength of opposition to the government’s proposals. Resources for this were attached to LTB 696/15.

As Branches will be aware, the TUC Congress in September agreed that the TUC should put together a comprehensive strategy for fighting the Bill, which included a co-ordinated national day of action and protest against the Bill across the country. The CWU is pushing for a firm commitment to this from all unions and for the TUC to agree a date for this as quickly as possible.

Branches will be kept up to date with any developments on this and any queries on the contents of this LTB should be addressed to the General Secretary’s Office at gsoffice@cwu.org.

Yours sincerely



Dave Ward
General Secretary