page_title: United Kingdom labour law
section_title: Collective action
hierarchical_section_title: United Kingdom labour law / Workplace participation / Collective action
caption_attribution_description: Europe, Britain, and Business: Beyond the Crisis – organized by Business for New Europe, hosted by Chatham House
context_page_description: United Kingdom labour law regulates the relations between workers, employers and trade unions. People at work in the UK benefit from a minimum charter of employment rights, which are found in various Acts, Regulations, common law and equity. This includes the right to a minimum wage of £8.21 for over 25-year-olds under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998. The Working Time Regulations 1998 give the right to 28 days paid holidays, breaks from work, and attempts to limit excessively long working hours. The Employment Rights Act 1996 gives the right to leave for child care, and the right to request flexible working patterns. The Pensions Act 2008 gives the right to be automatically enrolled in a basic occupational pension, whose funds must be protected according to the Pensions Act 1995.
  To get fair labour standards beyond the minimum, the most important right is to collectively participate in decisions about how an enterprise is managed. This works through collective bargaining, underpinned by the right to strike, and a growing set of rights of direct workplace participation. Workers must be able to vote for trustees of their occupational pensions under the Pensions Act 2004.
context_section_description: The right of workers to collectively withdraw their labour has always been used to make employers stick to a collective agreement. At critical moments of history, it also combatted political repression (e.g. the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, and the Indian Independence Movement up to 1947), prevented military coups against democratic governments (e.g. the general strike in Germany against the Kapp Putsch in 1920), and overthrew dictatorships (e.g. in the 2008 Egyptian general strike). Anti-democratic regimes cannot tolerate social organisation they do not control, which is why the right to strike is fundamental to every democratic society, and a recognised human right in international law. Historically, the UK recognised the right to strike at least since 1906. UK tradition has inspired the International Labour Organization Convention 87 (1948) articles 3 and 10, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights under article 11, and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights article 28. However, the scope of the right to take collective action has been controversial. Reflecting a series of restrictions from 1979 to 1997, the law was partially codified in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 sections 219 to 246, which now falls below international standards.
  There is no consensus about the status of the right to strike at common law. On the one hand, the House of Lords and the Court of Appeal has repeatedly affirmed that "to cease work except for higher wages, and a strike in consequence, was lawful at common law", that "right of workmen to strike is an essential element in the principle of collective bargaining", "that workmen have a right to strike", and that this is "a fundamental human right". This view would accord with international law, and see the right to stop work in a good faith trade dispute as an implied term in every employment contract. On the other hand, differently composed courts have asserted that the common law position sits at odds with international law: that a strike is a breach of contract, and this creates tortious liability for unions organising collective action, unless it falls within an immunity from statute. On this view, even though an employer is not liable for economic loss to workers who are collectively dismissed, a union could be liable to the employer for taking collective action. Economic torts have been said to include conspiracy to injure, inducement of breach of contract, and tortious interference with a contract. However, TULRCA 1992 section 219 contains the classic formula, that collective action by a trade union becomes immune from any liability in tort if done "in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute". This said, various further hurdles must be jumped for a union to be certain of immunity from employers suing for damages, or an injunction to stop a strike.
  First, the meaning of a "trade dispute" under TULRCA 1992 section 244 is confined to mean a dispute "between workers and their employer" and must mainly relate to employment terms. In BBC v Hearn Lord Denning MR granted an injunction against a strike by BBC staff to stop broadcast of the 1977 FA Cup Final to apartheid South Africa. He reasoned that this was a political dispute, not a "trade dispute", unless the union was requesting "putting a clause in the contract" to not do such work. Strikes against government legislation (rather than an employer), or privatisation, or outsourcing before it happens, have been held unlawful. However, at the least, any dispute over the terms or conditions on which workers do their jobs will allow protection. Second, TULRCA 1992 section 224 prevents collective action against someone who is "not the employer party to the dispute". "Secondary action" used to be lawful, from the Trade Union Act 1871 until 1927, and again from 1946 till 1980, but today it is not. This makes the definition of "employer" relevant, particularly where a trade dispute involves a company group. A worker's written statement of the contract may purport to say that the only "employer" is a subs
caption: Tony Blair, New Labour Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007, said in 1997 that "changes that we do propose would leave British law the most restrictive on trade unions in the Western world."[281] This is still seen as accurate.[282]
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