As the Employment Rights Bill (the Bill) works its way through Parliament, the government has provided further insight into what the industrial relations reforms will look like in its response to the consultation “Making work pay: creating a modern framework for industrial relations”.
Background to the consultation
The Bill proposes a raft of changes to the legal framework surrounding employment, including the legislation underpinning industrial relations. Following the publication of the Bill, the Department for Business and Trade launched a consultation on a range of industrial relations issues including:
- the principles underpinning a modern industrial relations framework;
- unfair practices during the trade union recognition process;
- employer obligations in the recognition process;
- simplifying industrial action ballots;
- extending the expiry of the strike mandate to 12 months; and
- updating the law on prior call and repudiation of industrial action.
The government indicated that the principles of collaboration, proportionality and accountability would underpin the industrial relations framework.
Amendments to the Bill
Following the consultation feedback, the government has made a number of amendments to the Bill:
- Trade union recognition process
Amendments to the Bill include a strengthening of protections against unfair practices. This includes updating the legislative framework so that the Central Arbitration Committee Code of Practice (intended to ensure that the recognition process is fair) would apply from the point when a trade union’s application for statutory recognition is accepted, rather than applying once parties have been informed of the arrangements for the recognition/derecognition ballot.
The Bill would introduce a 20-working-day window for access negotiations to conclude, with the aim of preventing an overly drawn-out recognition process. It would also give the Central Arbitration Committee the power to sanction parties who use unfair practices during the recognition process, regardless of whether the practice influenced voting behaviour.
The government proposes to extend the timeframe for complaints about unfair practices, from one day after the ballot has closed to five working days after the close of the ballot.
- Simplifying industrial action ballot thresholds
The Bill proposes to repeal the industrial action ballot threshold requirements. At present, at least 50% of all eligible members must vote for an industrial action ballot to be valid. To ensure that unions have a valid mandate for industrial action, the government has committed to delivering e-balloting which it anticipates will increase engagement with the process. The government will seek to align the date for removing this threshold with the introduction of e-balloting.
For ballots of workers engaged in “important public services”, at least 40% of those entitled to vote must have voted in favour of the action (in addition to the 50% turnout threshold). The Bill would also remove this 40% threshold.
- Extension to mandate for industrial action
The Bill would extend the expiry of a mandate for industrial action from six to 12 months. This means that, if the Bill is passed, unions will be entitled to organise strike action up to one year after its members vote in favour of striking.
- Notice of industrial action
The Bill would update the amount of notice required for industrial action, reducing the notice period for unions who must provide employers of their intention to carry out industrial action from 14 to 10 days. The Bill had initially proposed that this would be reduced to seven days.
Following mixed responses on the issues of updating the laws on both prior call and repudiation of industrial action, the government confirmed that it will not be taking forward any changes to the Bill on those issues.
What next?
The response confirmed that further consultation on industrial relations will follow once the Bill has received Royal Assent. The government also plans to develop policy options and, where necessary, secondary legislation in relation to:
- lowering admissibility requirements for the statutory trade union recognition ballot process;
- ensuring union members and workers can access a union at work;
- delivering greater rights and protections for trade unions representatives; and
- the delivery of e-balloting and workplace balloting for trade union ballots.
If the Bill passes into law, there is a lot of change ahead for employers. We are running a series of
30-minute webinars to highlight the key points employers should be aware of and thinking about. You can sign up for these here.
