Annual Report for 1972 of the Commission on Industrial Relations

DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1973.tb01391.x
AuthorP. L. Davies
Published date01 November 1973
Date01 November 1973
REPORTS
OF
COMMITTEES
ANNUAL
REPORT
FOR
1972
OF
THE
COMMISSION
ON
INDUSTRIAL
RELATIONS
THE Commission on Industrial Relations has issued its first annual
report under section
128 (1)
of the Industrial Relations Act
1971,
covering the period from its transmogrification into a statutory
body on November
1, 1971,
until the end
of
1972
(Report No.
37)-
Although during this period the Commission received ten references
from the National Industrial Relations Court in its new role as
maker of recommendations and holder of ballots for the court as
part of the new compulsory procedures concerning sole bargaining
agents, closed shops and
so
on, six of the eight Reports actually
published during the period concerned references originally made
before November
1.
They were therefore voluntary in nature, in
the sense that the recommendations of the Commission could not be
made legally binding and would be implemented only
in
so
far as
the good sense of the recommendations commended them to the
interested parties. Thus in terms of published Reports the period
was largely a reflection of work given to the Commission before it
assumed new duties under the Industrial Relations Act.
Nevertheless, the period did see the first Report on a reference
from the N.I.R.C., namely the joint application by the British
Shipping Federation and the National Union of Seamen for an
approved closed shop under Schedule
1
of the Act, in order to
continue the pre-entry, labour
pool,
closed shop that had been in
existence in the merchant shipping industry since the
1920s
(Report
No.
30).'
The criteria, all
of
which must be satisfied, which are to
be used by the Commission in evaluating such applications are set
out in paragraph
5
of the Schedule. Although the drafters of the
Act intended that the criteria should be met in very few instances,
the position of the N.U.S. was one of the situations that the Govern-
ment had in mind as requiring protection when it decided at a late
stage to introduce into the legislation the concept
of
an approved
closed shop to supplement that of the agency
shop.
Not siirpris-
ingly, the Commission found that the criteria were satisfied in this
ease. The crux of the matter was the limited opportunities the
union had to recruit new members and to check
on
existing ones, in
effect only when the seaman was accepted for registration by the
Merchant Navy Establishment Service Scheme and when he signed
articles, and the very high rates of labour turnover in the industry.
Without the closed shop the union would suffer
''
formidable diffi-
Originally given judicial approval
in
Reynolds
v.
Shipping
Federation
119241
1
Ch.
28.
624

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