With holiday travel underway, transport workers across the UK are standing up for fair pay and workplace safety. But they’ve been met with calls from some politicians to take away workers’ right to strike altogether.  

RMT conductors have been fighting plans to roll out driver-only trains that would run without a second staff member -- a change that unions say will cut jobs while also making public transit less safe. Meanwhile, the Post Office and Virgin Atlantic face worker strikes over pay disputes. The strikes have some politicians resorting to dangerous anti-worker rhetoric.  

But workers aren’t striking to make life difficult for passengers -- they’re doing it to put food on their tables and ensure safe transit for all of us. Tell that to transport minister Chris Grayling, who said he wouldn’t “rule anything out” when it came to changing laws to prevent future rail strikes. We need to come together to defend striking workers and remind MPs that we all have the right to strike.  

Tell Members of Parliament to defend workers’ right to strike!

From RMT conductors to Virgin Atlantic pilots and crew, striking transport workers aren’t “holding society to ransom,” as former cabinet minister Lord Heseltine put it. They’re standing up for fair wages and workplace safety. We can’t let Grayling use the holiday travel crunch as an excuse to curtail workers’ rights.

It’s not just Grayling that’s calling for a legislative attack on workers. Reports say as many as 20 MPs called on him to take action against the strikes. But curtailing workers’ rights is exactly the wrong response -- MPs should be taking measures to ensure employers provide the living wage and workplace safety that workers are fighting for now.

If not for the right for workers to unionize and strike, the 8-hour day and five-day week could be nothing more than a pipe dream. These rights are a crucial check against corporate power and exploitative employers that subject workers to low wages and dangerous working conditions. That’s why we need to come together now to make sure MPs stand with workers.