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By Liam - Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
It looks like we may be subjected to more strikes on the London Underground. ACAS are scheduled to hold talks between London Underground and the unions RMT and TSSA tomorrow in an effort to crack a deal to avoid a strike next Monday. See the ACAS website here.
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By Olivia - Friday, December 11th, 2009
ACAS has produced a revised Code of Practice on Time Off for Trade Union Duties And Activities. This replaces the old Code of Practice of 2003 and updates the Code to take into account, for example, the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006. The Code comes into effect on 1st January and includes guidance on time off for union learning representatives.
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By Olivia - Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
Sarah blogged yesterday on the increasing number of strikes (read her post here). If you are an employer facing strike action or want to prevent disputes escalating to industrial action you may be interested in a one day conference being run by the IRS on 15 October 2009 ‘Working with Trade Unions’.
The conference is billed as providing advice on managing trade union recognition and de-recognition, managing disputes, individual rights of union members and how to arrange ballots, individual and collective consultation and case studies demonstrating how to build good employee relations.
The practical examples should be useful as speakers include Bruce Warman, former HR Director of Vauxhall Motors, Shelagh Everett of The Co-operatvie Financial Services as well as speakers from ACAS, the NUT and CWU.
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By Olivia - Thursday, July 9th, 2009
An interesting side product of the recession is highlighted in figures released today by UNISON (the largest public sector trade union). These show that between January and June there has been a surge in the number of young people joining UNISON. The reasons given for joining include being fearful of their future, feeling vulnerable at work and not sure of employment rights and also financial insecurity, ageism, bullying, stress and fears about the BNP (!)
Certainly, in our experience, union representatives are becoming involved in a whole host of employment issues ranging from accompanying workers at disciplinary and grievance hearings to negotiating better exit deals. These statistics released today just highlight the general feeling of job uncertainty and one of the steps people (in this case young people!) are taking to provide themselves with some degree of comfort.
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By Olivia - Thursday, June 4th, 2009
Unison have issued a press release today stating that more than 1,000 UNISON and Unite members employed by British Waterways have rejected proposals for a pay freeze. This may be of particular interest to any employers considering alternatives to redundancies. UNISON argue that a pay freeze is essentially a pay cut given the rise in living costs. We suspect the proposals may also be a hard pill to swallow for union members given that the 2007/8 annual report revealed that the Chief Executive and eight directors enjoyed a lucrative salary and benefits packages and shared bonuses of more than £310,000!
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By Philip - Thursday, September 20th, 2007
Employers who recognise Trade Unions will often have collective agreements with the Trade Union which cover employees in the bargaining unit. The case reported here answers some old chestnuts that crop up from time to time:
1. A collective agreement is an agreement between a Trade Union and an employer, provisions within that collective agreement cannot be directly enforced by an employee as he was not a party to the agreement, unless the agreement was incorporated into the employee’s contract of employment.
2. Where an individual employee’s contract conflicts with a collective agreement, in this case over a weekend working allowance, then the contract normally trumps the collective agreement as the contract is a bespoke document for the individual employee whereas a collective agreement is a generic document which covers a group of employees, of which the individual employee may be a part.
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By Liam - Wednesday, August 29th, 2007
Just when we were beginning to think industrial action was in the main consigned to history, up has jumped the Prison Officers’ Association.
Whilst this is unlikely to herald a return to the “winter of discontent”as in the early 1970s it has raised an issue of potential illegality or so says the Government in the persona of Mr Straw who has been successful in obtaining a High Court injunction to stop the strike.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice has said the walkout is in breach of the industrial relations legislation though as far as we are aware no specifics have been publicised. The strike is unlikely to be held illegal due to the absence of a ballot as a ballot has taken place with a responce of 87% of members of the P.O.A.
What about the “no strike Agreement”, which the P.O.A. appear to have pulled out of? No strike agreements have been hailed as a “new and realistic approach to industrial relations”, however on this occasion the agreement has been given short shrift. It comes as no surprise that no strike agreements were introduced under the Conservative Government in 1994 and repealed by Labour with the objective of “improving industrial reations”!
It would seem that the Prison Officers Association gave notice of their intention to breach the no strike agreement in June of this year which is something short of the 12 months required.
The legality of the P.O.A.’s actions came under the watchful eye of Mr Justice Ramsey earlier today and the injunction was granted with the words”The administration of the prison service as part of the administration of justice in the country requires the grant of the injunction”. If the prison officers fail to heed the orders coming out of the High Court then contempt proceedings may follow which could result in prison officers seeing the other side of the cell doors!
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By Philip - Friday, March 9th, 2007
Amicus and the Transport and General Workers Union (T&G) have voted to form a super-union. The majority of voters with both unions backed the merger. The super-union has not yet been named but will come into effect on 1st May 2007. Quote of the week from the head of the two unions was “When we stand together our opponents, bad bosses and callous governments suddenly start to look much smaller”. I am sure all employers out there whether good, bad or ugly are quaking in their boots!!
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By Philip - Wednesday, March 7th, 2007
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the Trade Union Movement are free to choose not to admit (or to expel) BNP members as members of their union. Read it here
The case was brought by Aslef against the UK Government and concerned Aslef’s right to expel a Mr Lee from Aslef on the grounds that he had stood as a candidate for the BNP in local elections. The UK Government, as a result of the case, ended up being ordered to pay Aslef 50,000 euros.
Aslef had the right to limit membership to those who held its values. This raises some interesting questions for other associations and for freedom of speech and expression. Much as the views of the BNP are repellent, so are many other views held by other groups. Would Aslef, for example, expel members who expressed misogynist, anti-semitic or homophobic views or members who belonged to religions that held those views?
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By Philip - Monday, January 8th, 2007
The DTI has published a paper on workplace representation. The paper is here. The gist of the paper is that the Government is seeking views on the role of work place representatives. Judging by the “focus” group report at annexe one, and without wishing to pre-judge the consultation, PJH Law’s money is on the outcome of consultation being a better defined set of rights for work place representatives, in terms of a quantification of time off and rights to facilities like a room and a pc.Any thoughts on the questions posed in the introduction, let the DTI know.
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