2 Employment Relations Bill
| Date introduced to the House of Commons
Date introduced to the House of Lords
Current Bill Number
Previous Reports
| 2 December 2003
30 March 2004
House of Lords 88
4th, 8th, 10th and 13th
|
2.1 We have reported extensively on the human rights implications
of the Employment Relations Bill. In our Fourth Report,[4]
we reported our view that clauses 23 to 26 (now clauses 28 to
31) of the Employment Relations Bill would remove the incompatibility
between the United Kingdom's employment legislation and the rights
of employees and trade unions under ECHR Article 11 (right to
freedom of association) which had been established by the European
Court of Human Rights in Wilson and the National Union of Journalists
and others v. United Kingdom.[5]
The incompatibility arose because current legislation allows
an employer to offer inducements to employees to give up their
right to be members of a trade union. This was held to violate
the rights of both the individuals to whom inducements were offered
and the unions concerned.
2.2 In our Eighth Report,[6]
we drew attention to a possibility that certain Government amendments
to the Bill could give rise to a threat of a violation of Articles
10 (freedom of expression) and 11 (freedom of association) of
the ECHR, and to a violation of Article 14 (freedom from discrimination)
taken together with those articles, because the amendments would
allow a person to be excluded or expelled from a trade union for
any reason related to his or her activities as a member of any
political party. These amendments are now contained in clause
32 of the Bill.
2.3 In our Thirteenth Report we discussed the Bill
in light of two further communications, one from the Department
of Trade and Industry, the other from the Institute of Employment
Relations.[7]
2.4 We have since received further correspondence
from Gerry Sutcliffe MP, Minister for Employment Relations, Competition
and Consumers.[8] We welcome
the Minister's undertaking in his letter to keep matters under
review.
4 Fourth Report of Session 2003-04, Scrutiny of
Bills: Second Progress Report, HL Paper 34, HC 303, para.
3.5. Back
5
(2002) 35 EHRR 523, Eur. Ct. H.R. Back
6
Eighth Report of Session 2003-04, Scrutiny of Bills: Third
Progress Report, HL Paper 49, HC 427, para. 2.6. Back
7
Thirteenth Report of Session 2003-04, Scrutiny of Bills: Sixth
Progress Report, HL Paper 102, HC 640. Back
8
See Appendix 2. Back
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