Sir – Trades unions helped workers win health and safety law, fair wages, maternity and paternity pay and a better deal at work. Without trade unions, we would have no paid holidays.

Days lost to industrial action are at an all-time low, as unions these days are settling concerns at work before they become disputes. Over six million working people and their families are supported by their unions. They are the drivers, carers, paramedics, oil workers, cabin crew, scientists – you name it, they’re in a union – of the nation.

So why does this Conservative government want to crush their trade unions?

Their (anti) trade union Bill is making its way through Parliament. It has been slammed by managers, ex-ministers and even the Government’s own regulators, denounced as ‘not fit for purpose’ and ‘dangerously ideological’. Even Tory MPs feel unease about it with one saying it was akin to something found in Franco’s Spain.

When this Bill becomes law, the workers of these isles will be the poorest protected, easiest to mistreat in the EU. Quite an achievement for a government that pledged to be the ‘party of the working people’.

David Blowers
Gosford