Tories, including Boris Johnson, have demanded a clampdown on trade unions in a show of "Thatcherite zeal" aimed at stopping a wave of industrial unrest.
Johnson and backbench MPs want tough laws to make it harder to call strikes in an echo of Baroness Thatcher's campaign to curb union powers in the 1980s.
Johnson said it was "farcical" that a strike could be called with the backing of just a fraction of union members eligible to vote.
A recent report by the Conservative group on the London Assembly said Tube strikes in the capital cost the economy £48 million a day, estimating that industrial action between 2005 and 2009 cost £1 billion.
Johnson told The Sun: "The idea that a strike can be called by a majority of those that vote, rather than a majority of all those balloted, is farcical.
"It often results in a strike backed by just one in 10 union members, antagonising millions of commuters in the process and costing London and the UK billions every year.
"I'd urge the Government to act with some Thatcherite zeal and at the very least legislate against strikes supported by less than half of all union members."
The call for new laws making it illegal to take action without the support of more than 50% of members follows unions raising the prospect of a general strike in protest at the Government's austerity measures.
Tory MP Dominic Raab, who is leading a campaign for fresh powers, told The Sun: "Margaret Thatcher injected a dose of democracy into the unions, to empower their members and protect Britain.
"We now face a hot summer of discontent, with reckless strikes from schools to airports that most union members refused to back.
"It's high time we had extra safeguards to protect the hard-working majority from this abusive militant minority."
His fellow backbencher Priti Patel said: "Defending the rights of people to work without fear of intimidation, bullying or violence is exactly what Margaret Thatcher championed and this legislation could once again put the rights of workers above the vested interests of the left and their union barons."
But TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said the move to impose a turnout threshold on strike ballots would be "grossly hypocritical" when MPs did not need the support of 50% of all voters to win election.
She said: "The truth is that union members - particularly in the emergency services - are always reluctant to take strike action and only do so when no other way of resolving a dispute is available and only after a proper ballot.
"The first thing that any dictator does is attack democratic unions."