What does the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill mean for members?
The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill would allow employers to serve “work notices” on trade unions organising industrial action in “relevant services” in which the government would be entitled to set minimum service levels.
Work notices would identify which workers would be required to work while industrial action takes place.
If a union does not take “all reasonable steps” to ensure that members identified in the work notice comply, it would lose its legal immunity in respect of the industrial action, meaning it could be sued and that non-complying workers would lose their protection from dismissal.
There is no limitation on what minimum service is required.
What this means is that the government is giving itself sweeping powers to curtail the activities of unions in relevant services and restrict a vital right of working people.
In our view, there are significant doubts that the Bill currently complies with the European Convention on Human Rights, particularly in the context of the restrictions unions are already subject to and that the minimum service levels can be unilaterally determined without any restrictions.
This makes it vulnerable to legal challenge.
