John McDonnell's Hayes and Harlington constituency covers Heathrow, where the Gateway Gourmet industrial dispute has been unravelling. He said the New Labour government's failure to repeal some of the most stringent anti-trade union laws introduced in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher "compounded the offence".
"The government has done nothing for eight years in terms of secondary [strike] action, he said", he told a told a packed fringe meeting on the first day of the TUC congress in Brighton. "We could have had this discussion very easily."
Trade unions parliamentary groups in Westminster, often made up of MPs who get financial backing from trade unions, should apply pressure to persuade elected members to back new trade union rights for workers, said Mr McDonnell. In 2002 the RMT union withdrew sponsorship from MPs who voted against its wishes on railway matters.
Mr McDonnell was speaking after a motion was passed earlier yesterday for a trade union freedom private members' bill. The motion was proposed by the Gate Gourmet workers' TGWU union, and seconded by the RMT, and the bill would give protection for workers starting from their first day at work and cut the amount of notice required for a strike ballot.
The motion follows growing union restless at the slow pace of change following the Warwick agreement, a deal struck last summer between the government and the unions over Labour policy and trade union law.
Hopes for a public bill to wrap up many of the points thrashed out last year have not materialised. Unions are now calling for a "Warwick Two" to focus on better protection for workers' interests in the climate of deregulation.
The private members bill, drawn up by Mr McDonnell in conjunction with the Institute of Employment Rights, sets out demands for minimum terms and conditions in each sector of industry, simplifying the complex procedures surrounding workplace ballots, and suspending workers' contracts of employment during lawful industrial disputes.
Mr McDonnell, a strong trade unionist who sits on a number of trade union parliamentary groups, warned that continued failure to relax current restrictions on trade union activity would lead to a further decline in union membership.
"If we can't sort this one out there is a message going out to the whole of the movement about the future", he said. "It is what are we going to offer [members] in the future."
No cabinet minister has publicly shown any sign of endorsing the call for a bill, despite the TUC's careful weekend pronouncements that it would not automatically be backing the chancellor, Gordon Brown, in any leadership battle.
Unions have now pinned their hopes for the private member's bill, which they want to see included in next year's Queen Speech.
Mr McDonnell said he expected strong resistance to the bill in both houses, and called on the unions themselves to apply pressure.
He recalled efforts to introduce amendments to the last round of employment legislation, when just 34 MPs gave their backing.
"You need to tell MPs that this is the bottom line in that relationship", he said. "If you cannot support this bill as an MP, what is the point of being a member of a trade union group? What is the point of being a trade unionist? Across the trade union groups we have sufficient numbers of backbenchers to vote this bill through. No government could withstand the combined force of trade union groups."
Professor Keith Ewing, president of the Institute of Employment Relations, condemned the government's failure to introduce a bill implementing the deal struck at Warwick last summer. He drew a contrast with the last piece of employment legislation, Fairness at Work, a manifesto commitment which led to a white paper one year after New Labour first came to power, he said. "There has been no public movement on Warwick and there is frustration as a result", he said.
