• Changes could allow companies to hire temporary staff to cover striking workers, transport secretary says.
• Labour has accused ministers of “sowing chaos and sowing division” in the wake of the RMT union’s three-day strike.
• The government is preparing plans to repeal a legal ban on agency staff filling in.

The administration is working on steps to lift a legal bar on agency employees standing in for strikers. A prospective reform in legislation, according to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps; may allow companies to recruit temporary workers to cover specific positions and avoid interruption. Any action would have little effect on the rail strikes that have erupted across the United Kingdom this month.

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Mr Shapps, on the other hand, believes that modifications may be made rapidly to reduce future rail or other sector action. Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow chancellor, said the plans will make it “less safe to travel,” accusing ministers of “sowing instability and sowing hatred.”

“Rather of becoming firefighters, the administration is acting like arsonists,” she remarked.

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