Research Note: Injunctions as a Legal Weapon in Industrial Disputes

AuthorSonia McKay,Gregor Gall
Published date01 December 1996
Date01 December 1996
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1996.tb00491.x
British
Journal
of
Industrial
Relations
34:4
December
1996 0007-1080
pp.
567-582
Research Note: Injunctions
as
a
Legal
Weapon in Industrial Disputes
Gregor Gall and Sonia McKay
1.
Introduction
The use and the impact of the Conservative governments' employment laws
continues to attract a considerable amount of attention from industrial rela-
tions commentators as well as from the interested parties themselves (trade
unions, employers, government and political parties). One of the most
obvious signs
of
the impact of this raft of legislation has been the application
for and granting of injunctions in industrial disputes. Evans (1985, 1987)
published two major surveys on the early use of injunctions in industrial
disputes. The purpose of
his
work was to analyse the impact of the law on
industrial action and to ascertain how unions were responding to a
considerably more combative and restrictive legal environment. Since the
publication of these surveys, the Labour Research Department
(LRD)
(1985,1987,1988,1989,1990,1991,1994),
based in London, and the LRD
jointly with the Trade Union Congress (LRD/TUC 1995,1996) has been the
only body in Britain to analyse regularly the cases of injunctions against
trade unions, reporting on
204
separate legal actions between 1983 and
March 1996.' Of these, 169 have been applications by way of injunction (see
Appendix). The purpose of this article is to subject the
LRD
surveys to a
more in-depth analysis, looking at how employers have used the law and
what impact there has been, if any, on unions and on industrial action.
Before proceeding, it is important to note that the information upon
which this research note draws is derived in part from postal questionnaires
sent to all trade unions in Britain on the application for injunctions against
them in industrial disputes. These data were then supplemented by law
reports and secondary sources such as press reports. A high proportion of
actual cases are thus reported, but, because a minority of trade unions failed
to respond to the questionnaires (and law and press reports could not always
provide an alternative source of such required information), there are some
cases that have failed to be reported. Additionally, some trade unions do not
record legal data
in
a systematic way
so
that the full details of all cases have
not always been available.
Gregor Gall
is
in
the Department
of
Management
and
Organization at the University
of
Stirling. Sonia McKay
is
with the
Labour
Research Department
in
London.
0
Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London
School
of
Economics
19%.
Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd,
108
Cowley Road, Oxford,
OX4
1JF.
and
238
Main Street, Cambridge,
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02141,
USA.
568
British Journal
of
Industrial Relations
2.
Strike action since the 1980 Employment
Act
The Conservative governments of Thatcher and Major make much of the
fall in the number of stoppages since 1980. It is well recognized that strike
action has been in continuous decline since 1979, in terms
of
both the
number of stoppages and the number of workers taking strike action
(apart from the period 1984-5, which is almost entirely a result
of
the
miners’ strike). According to the most recent figures, there were just 211
stoppages in 1993, 205 in 1994 and 235 in 1995 (Sweeney and Davies
1996), the lowest level since records began in 1891. However, the vast
majority of commentators agree that strikes have fallen in Britain for
reasons other than just the employment legislation (e.g. Edwards 1995,
Kessler and Bayliss 1995); indeed, many would dispute that the employ-
ment legislation has had a
major
impact even when Britain’s strike record
is compared with other European countries (Gospel and Palmer 1993,
Jackson 1991).
Despite the debates over the causes
of
the decline, our main purpose
here is to identify the major sectoral or industrial locations of strike
activity in the
post-1980
period and to examine the extent to which chang-
ing patterns of industrial action have been affected by or related to the
use of injunctions. Major changes have been identified within patterns of
strike activity in this period compared with 196G79. These are the chang-
ing sectoral locations of strike activity (away from manufacturing and
mining and towards the public service sector) (Edwards 1995) and the
changing reasons for strikes (less to do with pay and more with redun-
dancy, but still consistently featuring conditions of work, work allocation
and dismissals.)2
3.
The laws
of
the 1980s
and
1990s
There are six main statutes that are relevant when considering the rela-
tionship between strike action and the law: the Employment Acts 1980,
1982, 1988 and 1990, the Trade Union Act 1984 and the Trade Union
Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993. These Acts limit the immuni-
ties available to trade unions in respect of industrial action in
so
far as
they relate to secondary action, picketing, balloting, union funds and
unofficial action. The Acts show that the Conservative governments re-
turned to a limited number of themes with each new piece
of
legislation.
Ballots, secondary action and union funds were each tackled on three
occasions, while picketing and unofficial action were significant in two
specific statutes, as Table
1
shows. In each case the immunities in respect
of common law actions were narrowed. Thus, since 1982 it has been
possible for trade unions to face actions in tort and to be sued for civil
actions for the first time since 1906, and unions engaging in secondary
action could no longer claim the protection of immunities.
Q
Blackwell
Publishers LtdnDndon
School
of
Economics
1996.

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