Under normal civil law, a trade union
would be acting unlawfully by encouraging and inducing people to breach
their contracts of employment. The employees in question would also
normally be acting in breach of contract and therefore also potentially
subject to civil action.
In order to get around this there are special laws in relation to
trade unions which allows them to induce people into breaching their
contracts, provided certain conditions are met. If these conditions are
not met, then the industrial action could be unlawful. The conditions
that need to be met include the need for there to be a ballot and for
employees to be in favour of the action. The recent planned British
Airways strike was found to be unlawful as it was held that the trade
union had balloted a number of people who should not have been balloted.
This shows that these rules are inflexible in their application;
although the additional balloting would have made no difference to the
outcome of the ballot, there was still a massive majority in favour of
strike action, it was still ruled to be illegal.
There are a number of other requirements that need to be met which
include the requirement that there is a trade dispute, that the
industrial action is not in support of another employer, and that notice
of the intended action is given to the employer. As an employer, when
you first become aware of the prospect of industrial action, you need
to ensure that you obtain legal advice from your employment solicitors.
It may be possible, where there are illegalities in the industrial
action planned, to get an injunction from a court to stop the action
taking place. It may also be possible to use employment solicitors when
negotiating to prevent the action and when attempting to make changes to
the contracts of employees.
It is rarely beneficial to have the strike action take place and it
will usually be favourable to negotiate changes to contracts. In many
cases, having a good team of negotiators and some flexibility towards
the planned changes will make the difference when attempting to avoid
industrial action. As an employee, your employment rights are
protected by employment law in regard to lawful industrial action.
Therefore, it important to obtain legal advice from an employment
solicitor if you are unsure of the legality of any industrial action you
are being asked to take part in.
