Industrial action
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has held that industrial action by a trade union in Sweden to prevent a Latvian company from paying low wages to workers posted from Latvia could not be justified.
The High Court has held that an employer could deduct only 1/260th of salary from employees' pay in respect of a one-day strike, and not 1/228th, which discounted paid holiday.
In R (on the application of Ultraframe (UK) Ltd) v Central Arbitration Committee, the Court of Appeal holds that the role of the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) had been intended by parliament to be a decision-making body in a specialist area not suitable for the intervention of the courts.
A dispute in relation to an employer's failure to agree with an unidentified future employer of some of its employees that both they and others subsequently employed by the new employer should be guaranteed their existing terms and conditions of employment was not a "trade dispute", holds the Court of Appeal in University College London Hospital NHS Trust v Unison.
A trade union is not required to restrict its call for industrial action to those of its members who were members at the date of the ballot and who were given an opportunity to vote in it, holds the Court of Appeal in London Underground Ltd v National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to industrial action.