CWU Campaigns To Defend Human Rights Act From Tory Abolition Plans

CWU General Secretary, Billy Hayes has written to all CWU Branches this week in order to highlight the risk that a Tory government will abolish the Human Rights Act. In a similar way in which the media attacks Health & Safety legislation, so it seems that the Human Rights Act will be the next target of both the tabloids and the Tory party during the next general election later this year.

Writing in LTB173/10, Billy Hayes defends the Human Rights act and urges all CWU Branches to endorece the campaign to defend the act:

The Human Rights Act, introduced in 1998, protects everyone’s human rights: young and old, rich and poor, yours and mine.  It is clearly very relevant and crucially important to trade unionists and trade unions.  Civil rights and employment rights go hand in hand.

However, there are many myths and misconceptions about Act.  It does not protect an endless catalogue of rights.  It only protects fundamental rights and freedoms.  In fact the rights contained in the Human Rights Act are so fundamental that no modern democracy has scrapped either the Human Rights Act or the equivalent legislation.  For Britain to scrap the Human Rights Act would be the same as the USA scrapping its Bill of Rights.

However, it seems that the Human Rights Act will inevitably become an issue in the forthcoming General Election.  This is because David Cameron has made clear his preference to abolish the Act and replace it with a “British Bill of Rights”.  It is entirely unclear what the difference would be and if the Conservatives are saying that there would be no change in practice, why scrap the Human Rights Act to start with?

Because of its importance to trade union activity and because of the very real threat to its continuation, the CWU’s NEC has endorsed a campaign from Liberty, the leading Human Rights campaigning group in the UK, called Common Values.

There is a dedicated interactive website, www.commonvalues.org.uk which explains how the Human Rights Act works in practice and addressing the misconceptions about it.

Amongst the actions that CWU members and representatives can take is the following:

* Visit www.love.commonvalues.org.uk to learn more about the Human Rights Act

* Download a copy of the new “What’s Not to Love?” poster (PDF) on the right by clicking on the pic.

* Email Liberty for copies of the poster and campaign materials to display and distribute here

* If you use online social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter share the link www.love.commonvalues.org.uk in your status updates or Tweets?

* Visit http://twibbon.com/join/whats-not-to-love to download a ' twibbon' (a small electronic badge) to add to your Facebook or Twitter profiles.

Source: CWU

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