11. Union responses to the Trade Union Act
[ch 11: page 62]It is early days to assess the impact of the Trade Union Act 2016 (TUA 16), affecting all ballots called on or after 1 March 2017. However, there have already been several successful ballots for industrial action since the law changed.
Examples include the three-day strike by Bank of England support staff (cleaners, security and maintenance staff) in August 2017, organised by general union Unite members over an imposed 1% pay rise – the first strike at the Bank in almost 40 years; three weeks of threatened strike action affecting 1,100 workers across the Argos distribution network, over the failure to negotiate a national agreement with Unite covering redundancy terms and pay; and the strike by Serco employees (domestic staff, porters and security workers) at London’s Barts Health NHS Trust, for an extra 30p an hour.
This chapter looks at ways in which unions might overcome some of the barriers to industrial action and protest put in place by the new law.