Industrial Relations

This article was first published in Employment Law Journal.

Collective rights and wrongs

Nick Huffer of Clarks asks whether the draft Employment Relations Bill goes far enough in addressing problems with the UK's trade union laws

Since 1997, with the coming to power of a Labour government and participation in the European Social Chapter, a whole raft of changes in employment legislation has come into being - and will continue to do so - giving substantially enhanced individual protection to employees and workers. This is particularly so in the discrimination field.

The EC has, moreover, via the Information and Consultation Directive (as well as the European Works Council Directive) set down minimum standards for informing and consulting employees collectively on a wide range of matters. Europe has, however, preferred not to legislate on trade unions, leaving this political hot potato in the hands of individual member states. The reintroduction of compulsory trade union recognition laws into the UK was very much the key reform of New Labour's "Fairness at Work" programme and the Employment Relations Act 1999, and did not emanate from a European Directive.

So where are we now on collective employment relations in the UK, and are we safe from a resurgence of 1970s-style trade union power?

Balance of power?

The government's current policy, witnessed by its review last year of the 1999 Employment Relations Act, is to make the existing framework more efficient, rather than to make any further changes to the balance of power between employers and unions. Accordingly, the draft Employment Relations Bill, due to come into effect this October, does not bring in any radical changes.

However, there are many in the union movement, in particular the new brand of trade union leaders, who are far from happy with the current compromise. Even big unions like the TGWU, AMICUS and the GMB finds themselves at odds with Labour policy, particularly over public sector reform. For the first time, there have been threats of concerted and coordinated industrial action by unions in an attempt to get around the unpopular secondary industrial action laws Labour has sworn to retain.

Few are forecasting a return to 1970s-scale industrial action or the mass picketing witnessed in the 1980s. However, a worrying development, which may be a trend, is a return to unballoted unofficial industrial action, which was very much part of 1970s industrial relations scene. The high profile unofficial action taken by postal workers and by BA staff last year is a key example of this. Such action can cause maximum damage to an employer, happening without warning, let alone a ballot.

Tory legacy

The legal minefield into which both unions and employers step in an industrial dispute is a large part of the problem...

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