Lockouts

Employers may try to anticipate a dispute or bring pressure to bear in a dispute 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, as employees who have been locked out may have a slightly better chance of pursuing a claim successfully. The Employment Relations Act 2004 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 and their employer refuses to let them back, they will still have dismissal protection. Locked out workers are treated in exactly the same way as strikers as far as state benefits are concerned (see below).

Lockouts are rare in British industrial relations, 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.