Trade union bill will increase inequality

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, authors of The Spirit Level, which argued that the most important single factor contributing to inequality was a decline in union membership. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

Just before taking office, David Cameron, the PR supremo who became PM, invoked The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, the wonderful book by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, which provided the evidence to prove that “the benefits of greater equality seem to be shared across the vast majority of the population” and argued that “the most important single factor” contributing to inequality was a decline in union membership (p245). As the Guardian’s editorial (The Conservatives the party of the workers? Judge by its deeds, 3 May) suggests, we should indeed judge the Tories by their deeds. The Tories’ pernicious trade union bill will hurt unions and their members and thereby equality, and so workers.
David Murray
Wallington, Surrey

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• This letter was amended on 4 May 2015. The names of the authors of The Spirit Level were wrongly given in an earlier version because of an editing error.