SIR – You can usually tell those people who are, to all intents and purposes, ‘anti-trade union’.

They are the ones who say they are in favour of unions looking after the interests of their members democratically, but not when it comes to the final step of workers withdrawing their labour, ie strike action.

Yes, strike action can be a great source of frustration and inconvenience to those affected adversely by it, but sometimes as a means of last resort, after all negotiation with employers has been exhausted (at least for a time), it is the only means open to employees collectively to show how strongly they feel about a perceived injustice or grievance.

And of course today, strikes only occur with the consent of the majority of voting members after a democratic ballot.

Some of those anti-union voices complain about the number of nay-sayers and non-voters, but of course in political elections, often the winner has less than 50 per cent of the total entitled to vote and, indeed many governments have come to power in such circumstances.

Unions today are extremely democratic and don’t need to look to politicians for guidance on this.

David Hornsby, West View Avenue, Wrose