New clause 4 - Unofficial industrial action
Employment Relations Bill
10:30 am
Mr Brian Cotter (Shadow Minister (Trade & Industry), Trade & Industry; Weston-Super-Mare, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), who cannot be here today. Earlier, the Minister said that the employment relations environment was pretty good, and obviously we very much welcome that. I hope that, in that spirit, hon. Members on both sides of the Committee will welcome the fact that my colleague and I tabled the new clause to rehearse a concern that is on the horizon or,
perhaps, closer than the horizon. We raise the issue in the spirit of ensuring that employment relations continue to be based in a good way and to be good.
Part 2 of the Bill relates to industrial action and is essentially about clarifying the requirements for conducting ballots and issuing notices to employers with regard to official strike action. Part 3 strengthens unfair dismissal protection for striking workers in cases in which they are locked out, as happened in the Friction Dynamics case, to which the Committee has already been referred.
All that is welcome when it comes to clarifying workers' rights and setting out the position of employers. However, one key area that the Bill fails to address is the increasing problem of unofficial strikes. Last week, Royal Mail revealed that it is unlikely to meet its end-of-year targets for delivering letters on time. It is important that post is delivered on time, particularly for small firms receiving cheques. The recent postal action may have a great impact on small firms. Having run a small firm, I know that one can be in a tight situation, just waiting for that cheque to come in to enable one to pay someone else.
There has been much concern about that issue. I asked the Department of Trade and Industry about it, but I believe that the answer stated that there is not enough evidence. Clearly, there is anecdotal evidence that a strike such as that at Royal Mail can have a big impact. That strike was disastrous for the public and businesses, both of which rely on Royal Mail. If a business is delayed in banking a cheque, it can be a big problem. That should be of great concern to us. As I said, I did not get a sufficient answer to my question to the DTI.
Unfortunately, last autumn's strike was not an isolated incident but may be part of a trend. It is worrying that the number of unofficial strikes over the last decade has risen. As Dr. Gregor Gall of the university of Stirling recently pointed out in an editorial letter to The Guardian, while overall strike activity has fallen by around 80 per cent. since 1979, which we all welcome and which is probably the basis of the Minister's comments, overall, unofficial strike activity has fallen by about 40 per cent. Obviously, those figures have not fallen by the same degree. Since 1991, the percentage contributed by unofficial strikes, in terms of strike frequency, has grown—so the proportion of unofficial strikes has grown.
Only when there was a rash of high-profile unofficial strikes at the end of last year was that issue highlighted, although it has been going on for more than a decade. The cycle started in late July 2003 when British Airways check-in staff at Heathrow went on strike to protest against BA's plans to introduce a swipe-card system to record what time staff began and finished work. Not only did that strike affect as many as 100,000 members of the public, but it cost BA £40 million. There was also the postal strike, to which I have referred, and action by fire service personnel. Although the Fire Brigades Union did not publicly condone the strikes by its members, its general secretary, Andy Gilchrist, tried to explain the reasons behind the strike and said that union members were extremely angry at their 7 per cent.
pay rise. That is another example of a wildcat-type strike.