The Right to Strike under UK Law: Not Much More than a Slogan (original) (raw)

The right to strike A trade union view

1991

This short book, written for and published by the Institute of Employment Rights, discusses the nature of an impact of the anti-strike laws as they existed in 1991. Unfortunately, although the book is over 20 years' old, much of this law still exists, and this is despite 13 years of a Labour government. Moreover, further controls were introduced by the Conservative’s Trade Union Act 2016, particularly through the imposition of special voting majorities In secret ballots . The main purpose of the book is to argue that trade union members have nothing to gain from repeal of the anti-union law being in the form of the re-widening of the statutory immunites. Rather, the system of immunites should be totally replaced by a system of positive rights to strike and engage in effective picketing.

The Right to Strike: A Radical View

W orkers face a common dilemma when exercising their right to strike. For the worst-off workers to go on strike with some reasonable chance of success, they must use coercive strike tactics like mass pickets and sit-downs. These tactics violate some basic liberties, such as contract, association , and private property, and the laws that protect those liberties. Which has priority, the right to strike or the basic liberties strikers might violate? The answer depends on why the right to strike is justified. In contrast to liberal and social democratic arguments, on the radical view defended here, the right to strike is a right to resist oppression. This oppression is partly a product of the legal protection of basic economic liberties, which explains why the right to strike has priority over these liberties. The radical view thus best explains why workers may use some coercive, even lawbreaking, strike tactics.