The RMT union this week launched a legal challenge in the European Court of Human Rights in a bid to stop unions being ordered to call off strikes on legal technicalities.
Lawyers for the union believe that if they win, Tory and Labour trade union laws will have to be amended, making it harder to stop workers who have voted to strike – as British Airways did against Unite last year.
The RMT is arguing that two rules in the 1992 Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act – the requirement to give job details of all workers being balloted and the ban on secondary action – violate Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Last year, EDF Energy and Hydrex Powerlink both succeeding in banning strike action by RMT members using these two rules. Specific requirements to provide job and workplace details were added by the 2004 Employment Relations Act.
RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: “The shackles that the anti-trade union laws have thrown around workers in this country seeking to take industrial action in defence of jobs and working conditions have got tighter and tighter in the past year. We have no option but to take these matters to the European Court in a bid to protect the rights of our members and of working people in Britain.”
Neil Todd of Thompsons Solicitors, who are bringing the case, said: “If the case does succeed, and the law is amended as a result, then it will be more difficult for employers to be granted injunctions using technical arguments with respect to the notice requirements for taking industrial action.”
