- Conference
- 2004 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 2 March 2004
- Decision
- Carried
Conference believes that effective worker information and consultation is crucial, promoting the fairer treatment of the workforce and improving organisational performance. Too often employers consult the workforce inadequately or not at all, souring relations, depressing morale, and frequently leading to the implementation of decisions that are inappropriate and fail to reflect the reality of public services on the ground. Conference supports the adoption of the Information and Consultation Directive as a welcome step towards better information and consultation in UK workplaces, and recognises the opportunities that it will offer to extend information and consultation of UNISON members.
Conference also welcomes the social partner agreement reached on a framework for the implementation of the Directive, and notes the draft regulations produced by the government.
However, Conference is concerned that the draft regulations are not fully in line with all the legal requirements of the Directive, and leave unclosed a number of loopholes that may allow employers to undermine the Directive’s intentions. In particular, Conference believes that the provisions in the draft regulations that would allow employers to satisfy their obligations under the Directive by informing and consulting employees directly are likely to be in legal breach of the Directive, which envisages information and consultation taking place through employee representatives. Conference calls on the government to amend the draft regulations in order to amend this defect.
Conference further believes that it is essential to ensure that the implementation of the Information and Consultation Directive is compatible with strong trade unionism. Under their current form, the draft regulations have the potential to be used by anti-union employers to undermine existing information and consultation agreements with trade unions, by allowing employers to set up parallel and competing structures for information and consultation that bypass the trade union. Conference therefore calls upon the government to make amendments to the draft regulations to prevent employers from using the Directive to put in place new arrangements for information and consultation where such arrangements already exist under an agreement with a recognised trade union.
Conference calls upon the National Executive Council to:
1)lobby, including through the Labour Link and the TUC, to ensure that the regulations implementing the Directive are fully in line with the Directive’s legal requirements, and that they cannot be used to undermine existing information and consultation arrangements with recognised trade unions;
2)develop a UNISON strategy to utilise the bargaining, recruitment and retention opportunities offered by the Directive, as well as to manage any possible problem areas;
3)work with service groups to review existing information and consultation agreements in the light of the Directive’s implementation;
4)prepare easy-to-use branch guidance on the new information and consultation rights.