4 Employment Relations Act
| Date introduced to the House of Lords
Date introduced to the House of Commons
Date given Royal Assent
Previous Reports
| 2 December 2003
30 March 2004
16 September 2004
4th, 8th, 10th, 13th and 17th
|
4.1 We have reported extensively on the human rights implications
of what is now the Employment Relations Act. In our Fourth Report,[40]
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.[41]
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.
4.2 In our Eighth Report,[42]
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 have now been incorporated into
the Bill.
4.3 In our Thirteenth Report[43]
we discussed the Bill in light of further communications from
the Department of Trade and Industry and the Institute of Employment
Relations. In our Seventeenth Report we again published correspondence
from the Department relating to clauses 28 to 32, and welcomed
their willingness to keep the matters that we had raised under
review.[44]
4.4 On 6 September we received correspondence from
the Department informing us that, after taking advice from ourselves
and others, they would be tabling amendments at Third Reading
in the Lords to make it "unlawful for employers to make offers
to … union members with the sole or main purpose of ensuring
that any or all of their terms of employment will not be covered
by a collective agreement".[45]
The Bill was amended to this effect on 8 September.[46]
The Bill was given Royal Assent on 16 September 2004.
40 Fourth Report, Session 2003-04, Scrutiny of Bills:
Second Progress Report, HL Paper 34, HC 303, para. 3.5 Back
41
(2002) 35 EHRR 523, Eur. Ct. H.R. Back
42
Eighth Report, Session 2003-04, Scrutiny of Bills: Third Progress
Report, HL Paper 49, HC 427, para. 2.6 Back
43
Thirteenth Report, Session 2003-04, Scrutiny of Bills: Sixth
Progress Report, HL Paper 102, HC 640 Back
44
Seventeenth Report, Session 2003-04, Scrutiny of Bills: Seventh
Progress Report, HL Paper 157, HC 999 Back
45
Appendix 3 Back
46
HL Deb., 8 September 2004, cols 651-663 Back
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