The Rights of Trade Union Members

Abstract

For many years the legislature adopted a non-interventionist approach in the area of trade union activity and apart from giving trade unions immunity from liability in certain situations, to enable them to take industrial action, very little legislation was passed. This meant, however, that while individual members were protected should they take industrial action, very few other rights accrued. The Industrial Relations Act 1971 showed a departure from the previous non-interventionist approach and although the Act was shortlived its successor, the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974, introduced strong protection for the union and its members engaging in industrial action and gave legal protection to the closed shop. The Labour government which introduced that piece of legislation, however, saw it as part of a three-part plan in this field. The second part was the introduction of employment protection rights which were enacted in the Employment Protection Act 1975 and which also, for the first time, gave rights to trade union members vis-à-vis the employer. The final part was to be legislation on industrial democracy which did not get very far due to the party losing power. The government which took office in 1979 was anxious to protect non-union members and democratise the unions, therefore, while retaining many of the rights union members had against an employer, it introduced rights for non-union members to protect them in situations where the union was putting pressure on the employer to either dismiss or discriminate against them because of their non-union membership.