Clause 5 - Union communications with workers after acceptance of application
Employment Relations Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon, Conservative)
We are debating a situation where a ballot has not yet taken place and the unions wish to send missives to workers. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that if information sent out by unions, employers or non-unionised workers is subsequently proved to be inaccurate or to contain misrepresentations, the Central Arbitration Committee should declare the result invalid and any resulting union recognition should be quashed.
I concede that the drafting of the amendment is not of the high quality that we would expect from civil servants, but the principle is sound. Let me give a few examples. What if a union that is desperate for recognition makes misrepresentations about the company or other unions that could be competing with it for recognition, or about non-unionised workers in relation to statements or the positioning of non-unionised workers within that company? The basis of the ballot might be morally invalidated by those misrepresentations. The Bill does not deal with such an instance. As has been said, the Bill sits on top of many other Acts and I may have overlooked the legislation that deals with this issue. It is something that we should address.