- Conference
- 2004 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 10 February 2004
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference welcomes the government’s employment rights bill 2003 but believes that it does not go far enough, leaving workers in Britain with less protection than those employed in the rest of Europe. We welcome those provisions that build on the Employment Rights Act of 1999, improving the process of recognition and establishing important and consultation rights.
Whilst the bill offers improvements in the rights of British workers, we still have less rights than those recognised as necessary by the Council of Europe and the International Labour Organisation.
Conference regrets that the bill does not address the issues of:
1)there is no right to strike in British law;
2)the strict definition of a trade dispute is still designed to prevent and dissuade industrial action over privatisation and externalisation;
3)solidarity action is still unlawful in Britain and allows employers the opportunity to use tactical definitions of employers that prevents action within the same organisation;
4)the bill does not address the use of anti-trade union tactics by employers, particularly in relation to recognition campaigns;
5)the bill still does not allow workers in smaller organisations the same rights to recognition, effectively denying six million people the right to trade union representation.
Conference therefore resolves to continue to campaign for real and substantial improvements in trade union rights in Britain, in conjunction with the TUC and the wider labour movement. These improvements to include:
a)the definition of trade disputes to be widened significantly, to include associated employers and to include employer plans to transfer and privatise services to another employer;
b)the definition to allow for disputes over trade union recognition clauses in contracts for goods or services;
c)the end of the ban on solidarity action;
d)the ending of bureaucratic and procedural provisions for ballots that are designed to aid employers opposing action;
e)the establishment of further positive rights to protection from victimisation of trade union members and activists;
f)trade union recognition rights to be extended to include all organisations regardless of the size of their workforce.