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Collective employee relations

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  • Date:
    29 November 1988
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Industrial action: Mere presence of pickets can be inducement to breach contract

    In Union Traffic Ltd v Transport and General Workers' Union and others, the Court of Appeal holds that, in certain circumstances, the mere presence of pickets can constitute an inducement of those seeking to cross the picket line to break their contracts of employment and so be unlawful.

  • Date:
    4 August 1987
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Transfer of undertakings: Consultation over business transfers

    In Institution of Professional Civil Servants and others v Secretary of State for Defence the High Court rejects a complaint by various trade unions that the Secretary of State had not Informed and consulted them about a proposed transfer of two dockyards to commercial management, as required by s.1 of the Dockyard Services Act 1986.

  • Date:
    31 March 1987
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Industrial action: Employer entitled to deduct pay for industrial action

    Workers who are on strike, or who, by way of industrial action, refuse to carry out their duties, are not entitled to be paid unless the employer accepts such work as is performed during industrial action as complete performance of the worker's duties. So holds the House of Lords in Miles v Wakefield Metropolitan District Council, rejecting Mr Miles' claim for wages in respect of a period of industrial action.

  • Date:
    5 August 1986
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Contracts of employment: Incorporation into employment contracts

    Many collective agreements state that they are to be "binding in honour only". In Marley v Forward Trust Group Ltd the Court of Appeal holds that this applies between the parties to the agreement, ie the union and employer, and does not affect the legal enforceability of terms of collective agreements which are incorporated into contracts of employment of individuals.

  • Date:
    1 October 1985
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Transport & General Workers' Union v Ledbury Preserves (1928) Ltd

    In Transport & General Workers' Union v Ledbury Preserves (1928) Ltd [1985] IRLR 412 EAT, the EAT held that in a potential redundancy situation there must be "sufficient meaningful" consultation before notices of dismissal are sent out.

  • Date:
    2 April 1985
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Industrial action: Injunctions restraining unlawful picketing

    In what was perhaps the most significant of all the cases arising out of the miners' dispute, Thomas & others v National Union of Mineworkers (South Wales Area) & others, the High Court grants injunctions restraining picketing of colliery gates in numbers greater than six.

  • Date:
    6 December 1983
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Industrial action: POEU dispute not related mainly to redundancy fears

    The Employment Act 1982 narrowed the definition of a trade dispute so that a dispute must now relate wholly or mainly to one of the specified matters. In Mercury Communications Ltd v Scott-Gamer and The Post Office Engineering Union, the Court of Appeal examines documents and letters written on behalf of the union and concludes that the POEU probably could not show that the dispute arose from fear of redundancies rather than from its political objections to the Government's policies.

  • Date:
    26 July 1983
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Industrial action: Byelaw renders picketing unlawful

    Peaceful picketing at or near a person's own place of work for the purpose of obtaining or communicating information, or persuading others not to work, is lawful if it is in contemplation of furtherance of a trade dispute. However, this does not give the right to contravene byelaws made in pursuance of a power conferred by statute, holds the High Court in British Airports Authority v Ashton and others.

  • Date:
    28 June 1983
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    Contracts of employment: Contracts unaffected by employers' termination of collective agreement

    Where the terms of a collective agreement are incorporated into employees' contracts of employment, they may be varied from time to time by agreement between the trade unions and the employers, so that the individual contracts are also varied. But, says the Court of Appeal in Robertson and Jackson v British Gas Corporation, if the collective agreement is terminated by the unilateral withdrawal or its terms varied by unilateral action to which the other side does not agree, the individual contracts remain unaffected.

  • Date:
    1 January 1980
    Type:
    Employment law cases

    MacShane and Ashton v Express Newspapers Ltd

    In MacShane and Ashton v Express Newspapers Ltd [1980] IRLR 35 HL, the House of Lords held that the Court of Appeal had erred in granting an interlocutory injunction restraining the defendants from instructing NUJ members employed on national newspapers to "black" copy from the Press Association.