Documents Hendy, John Q.C. 21 results

"The Trade Union Bill raised major concerns about freedom of association in particular and its compatibility with a number of treaty obligations, including notably, the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 11. Complaints were made to the International Labour Organisation, and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights considered the Bill. This paper seeks to assess the extent to which such human rights considerations influenced the final text which became the Act. Our view is that, although the government made a number of notable concessions, these were informed more by political than by legal considerations. Despite the concessions, human rights concerns still remain. Our secondary aim in this paper is to consider some factors relevant to the possibility of a successful legal challenge based on those concerns. We think such a challenge unlikely for two reasons. Firstly, the concessions removed many of the substantive provisions most susceptible to a human rights challenge. Secondly, whilst the domestic courts have been reluctant to embrace Convention rights in trade union cases, the Strasbourg Court has recently been notably sympathetic to the British Government in Article 11 cases, carving out for this country an apparently protected position on freedom of association issues."

"The law needs to change. This Manifesto offers 25 major policy recommendations for consideration. It proposes changing the way in which working conditions are regulated by embedding the voice of workers at national, sectoral and enterprise levels. It moves responsibility for workplace regulation from legislation to collective bargaining. It calls for a Ministry of Labour and a National Economic Forum; sectoral collective bargaining; the repeal of the Trade Union Act 2016 and the introduction of fundamental and enforceable rights for workers.
This is a timely, authoritative and extremely important contribution to the debate on the future of the world of work."

"This latest publication from the Institute considers whether a day of action called by the TUC and trade unions, taking place on a weekday and intended to protest at the government's cuts and austerity measures, could be lawful in the UK in the light of recent jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights

Trade unions and their members are deeply concerned by government policies and by the actions being taken in the name of austerity. That concern was evident at the extraordinary TUC march and rally on 26th March 2011 and again in the public sector pension strike on 30th. It will no doubt also be evident on the 30 November 2011 Day of Action, as trade union members respond to cuts in their public sector pension.

If the government's committment to austerity measures is likely to continue, it is also likely to give rise to more protest in the form of industrial disputes, demonstrations, marches and rallies. It is quite possible that non-attendance at work will be an incidental consequence of the latter forms of protest.

In this timely publication the authors - two of the UK's leading experts on labour law - consider whether a day of action against government policy could be lawful in the UK given the restrictive nature of UK laws. They conclude that such a call and participation in the action should be protected by Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. They go on to consider how that conclusion would impact on domestic law."

"The government's announcement of the extension of the qualifying period for claiming unfair dismissal from one to two years and its proposal to introduce a fee regime for employment tribunal claims is considered against the latest published statistics for employment tribunal outcomes (for the year 2010–11). The latter are considered to show that the rationale for the changes is questionable and the impact of the fees regime likely to be disproportionate and unfair. "