Roger Evans wants to disarm working people in the face of falling living standards and growing management pressures to work harder and longer (Your Views, Tube strikes should not be allowed).

He calls for “tube strikes to be banned and replaced with a compulsory mediation process which uses an independent judge”.

Britain already has the most draconian industrial relations laws in Europe. The legal hurdles trade union members (NOT just a few union officials) face in obtaining a ballot result for any course of action to defend their rights and living conditions are massive. “Independent judges” usually interpret these laws in court in favour of the employers. How surprising!

Any legislation that completely removes the last remaining traces of the right to withdraw labour would hit hardest at the lowest paid. It would also further erode the rights of the common people to combine to assert their interests in an increasingly unequal world.

Such a move should be resisted.

Bob Archer, Secretary, Redbridge Trades Council