Lockouts

Employers may try to anticipate a dispute or bring pressure to bear by locking out workers. A lockout is defined in section 235(4) of the ERA 96 to include closures or suspensions by the employer with a view to forcing workers to accept specific terms or conditions.

Establishing when a lockout has taken place can present difficulties but it may be important where individuals are claiming unfair dismissal. Section 26 of the ERA 04 extends the period of protection from unfair dismissal to include any time when employees are locked out. So if a group of workers wants to return to work after being on strike for 12 weeks (see page 265) and their employer refuses to let them back, they will still be protected from unfair dismissal.

Lockouts have, until fairly recently, been rare in the UK, but 2012 saw the return of this method of forcing workers to accept terms and conditions, with the lockout and eventual dismissal of 149 workers at Austrian-owned carton printer Mayr-Melnhof Packaging, following protests over unfair redundancy terms — the first lockout in Britain for over 50 years. This was followed in 2013 by the Grangemouth Oil Refinery dispute in which a workforce attempting to protect its Unite union rep from victimisation was first locked out, and then threatened with complete closure of the refinery unless they accepted cuts to pay and pensions and the effective silencing of union voice at their workplace.

In relation to state benefits, locked out workers are treated in the same way as strikers (see page 268).