Was Vince Cable right to threaten striking unions?

Vince Cable yesterday provoked jeers from union representatives when he warned them that too much strike action could lead to the government legislating to make industrial action more difficult.

He was speaking to the GMB union ahead of a planned strike on June 30 across the public sector to protest against changes in pension conditions proposed in the Hutton report.

Cable said strike levels are "historically low", especially in the private sector. "On that basis, and assuming this pattern continues, the case for changing strike law is not compelling," he said.

"However, should the position change, and should strikes impose serious damage to our economic and social fabric, the pressure on us to act would ratchet up. That is something both you and I would want to avoid."

Was Cable right to threaten the unions?

Yes, and the unions are overreacting, says James Undy, blogging for the Independent. Cable's observation that "in the highly unlikely event the country is paralysed by strike action", the government might feel under pressure to tinker with union law, is "unexceptional", says Undy.

He also suggests the unions are overreacting apparently in order to pull out of talks on public sector pension reforms proposed in the Hutton report.

Dr Adam Marshall, director of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, agrees with Cable that strikes could cause economic damage, telling the BBC: "Large-scale industrial action would have a significant impact on business confidence and inward investment, which are both critical to the UK's economic recovery."

No, Cable is the one overreacting, the GMB's general secretary Paul Kenny told the BBC Today programme, and the real economic villain is the banking sector. "I don't think that any strike in this country could inflict the sort of economic damage on our country that the banks and finance houses and frankly current government policy have done."

The Guardian saw Cable's speech as "a fresh attack on the right to strike" - and one that comes at "precisely the wrong time". Hardly anybody today believes the unions are a threat, while "very many people blame the banks for the cuts".

The paper fears that "the coalition imagines a pliant workforce is all that is required to walk Britain down the path to prosperity".

Right or wrong, Cable can't change strike laws fast enough anyway. "The reality is that any actual change in the law on ballots will need legislation and therefore cannot be done overnight," Ed Goodwyn, a partner at law firm Pinsent Masons, tells HR magazine People Management.

He points out that the moment unions see the government changing the law, they will speed up their strike ballots. "The difficulty for the government is that any move to change the law could precipitate the very action they're trying to dissuade the unions from taking." ·