PDF FILE - Thompsons Solicitors

industrial action
UNION FREEDOM BILL
strike. The proposed Bill would
extend those regulations by
making it unlawful for
employers to hire workers to
break a strike.
WILL SOLIDARITY
ACTION NOT RESULT IN
WILDCAT STRIKES?
Whatever the Government
says, the answer is no. The ILO
particular customer (or supplier)
dominates the employer’s trade
to such an extent that it can
interfere in the employer’s
relations with their employees,
injunctions to stop the
industrial action. Employers
know when there’s a dispute
and a ballot in the offing. The
Bill would scrap them.
WHY ARE INJUNCTIONS
SO EASY TO OBTAIN
HERE?
Both the ILO and the Council of
Europe have condemned the
ease with which the courts here
says that sympathetic strikes
should be lawful as long as the
primary strike is lawful.
The ILO has noted that
sympathy strikes “are becoming
increasingly frequent because of
the move towards the
perhaps by actions resulting in
a pay cut.
HOW CAN INDUSTRIAL
ACTION BALLOTS BE
SIMPLIFIED?
International bodies also attack
HOW CAN INDUSTRIAL
ACTION NOTICES BE
SIMPLIFIED?
The Bill also says that all the
onerous formalities for giving
notice of industrial action
grant interim injunctions to
concentration of enterprises, the
the UK’s industrial action
should be replaced by an
employers. The problem is that
globalisation of the economy
balloting rules for being overly
obligation to give seven days
the law says employers only
and the delocalisation of work
restrictive and complex.
notice to employers of when the
have to show that there is a
centres.” And, it could have
The Bill proposes a modest but
industrial action will start, and
“serious issue to be tried” later.
added, contracting out and
highly significant change in
reasonable information about
The Bill will change that so the
privatisation.
preventing legal action for trivial,
those expected to take part.
employer has to show they are
more likely to win at trial than
the union.
The law also says that judges
have to “weigh the balance of
convenience”. Needless to say,
the “balance” is heavily weighted
in favour of employers who can
argue that their business would
be damaged if they don’t obtain
the interim injunction.
But, in the UK, all forms of
solidarity action are unlawful.
So the Bill proposes that a
group of workers should have
the freedom to take industrial
action in support of another
group who are on strike, but
only in situations where there is
a substantial connection
between them.
One situation would be where
technical or accidental breaches
of the balloting provisions, which
could have no effect on the
outcome of the ballot.
In addition, the Bill proposes
to remove the “bar” on
industrial action where there
has been a “prior call”,
highlighted by the case of RMT
-v- Midland Mainline in 2001.
The union was told it could not
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Trade unionists and the
politically active can help by
sending motions to their union,
political party branches and
conferences. Ask your MP to
sign up to an early day motion
that supports the Bill.
Watch out for the lobby of
Parliament in the autumn
The Bill does not address this
the employer in the primary
rectify a prior unofficial call to
coinciding with the centenary
specific issue, but does provide
dispute and the employer
take industrial action by
of the Trade Disputes Act 1906.
some limit on the operation of
subject to solidarity action are
repudiating the call and then
Let’s send out the message that
the “balance of convenience” by
associated employers. A second
conducting a proper ballot and
we want our Government to
denying employers an
injunction if they don’t supply
is where a second employer is
covering the work of the strikers.
serving the requisite notices.
In reality, notices of ballots
stop flouting international law
and let’s demand our human
specific information within a
time frame.
And the third is directed at the
Gate Gourmet situation where a
are of little value to employers
except for obtaining court
rights and freedoms for the
21st century.
THOMPSONS SOLICITORS Labour&European Law Review FEATURE 7