Mick Lynch says UK government is 'losing the argument' over strikes branding them as “incompetent” and “incapable of understanding the railway”
Speaking from the picket line at Euston Station on Friday, Mr Lynch told BBC Breakfast: “It is really important in a democratic society that we have free trade unions that represent working people and represent the biggest democratic force in this country.
“There is no bigger movement than the trade union movement, six or seven million people in it.”
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Hide AdHe said of the new laws: “What this is a symbol of is that the Government are losing the argument.


“They’ve lost the argument on austerity and pay, and the state of our national public services.
“And instead they want to close that argument down by closing down the unions and stopping us from campaigning against poverty.”
has said that the Government’s new industrial action legislation is a threat to sack union members if they refuse to go to work.
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Hide AdSpeaking from the picket line at Euston Station on Friday, he told the Press Association “The railway service is in desperate straits.
“The companies that run it and the Government that oversees it have shown that they are incompetent and incapable of understanding the railway and running the railway on a daily basis.
“When we are not on strike, the passengers are told, in this station and every other station, that due to shortages of staff trains aren’t running.
“At the same time, they say to me at the negotiating table that they want to make thousands of your members redundant.
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Hide Ad“So, there is something desperately wrong with the way this railway is being run. But there is something desperately wrong with the way all public services are being run, and that’s why the workforce in these services are in rebellion now.
“The Government has got to get a grip and come to the table with all these disputes, and say ‘we want to work with you and settle these disputes and get a deal’.”
Rail passengers face a fourth consecutive day of travel disruption on Friday because of a strike by thousands of workers in a dispute over jobs, pay and conditions.