Clause 43 - Union learning representatives
Employment Bill
10:45 am
Mr John Healey (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Education and Skills; Wentworth, Labour)
The purpose of the clause and our policy is to reinforce the role of union learning reps. The right to time off to undertake those duties must be reasonable in the circumstances that I have explained. The Bill already provides necessary protection for employers against disruption of their business, such as in the slightly extreme example cited by the hon. Gentleman. It does that without placing an explicit upper limit on the number of union learning reps. That is my first point: the amendments are unnecessary.
The amendments are also undesirable, because restricting the number of union learning reps able to provide advice to employees would undermine the effectiveness of union learning rep support. If I read the amendment correctly, it would mean that a union could appoint just one union learning rep at a very large workplace or establishment that might have several thousand union members but only one bargaining unit. One size does not fit all, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said in his opening remarks, but the amendment would try to make it do just that.