Union leaders yesterday reacted angrily to criticism from Digby Jones, director general of the CBI.

After two interviews in which Jones accused unions of fighting "yesterday's battles" and obstructing public sector reform, the Transport and General Workers Union urged the government to "pay no heed to CBI whingeing".

"Digby Jones's plea to government to turn a deaf ear to calls for improved workers' rights shows the true yearning is for a backwards employment culture, one which supports a two-tier workforce in the name of flexibility," the general secretary of the TGWU, Sir Bill Morris, said yesterday

"Dire warnings that employers and unions will grow further apart ring particularly hollow when the CBI stands in the way of extending the legal right to join a trade union for around six million people today working in small firms."