Threats to control wider protest and union use of social media

At the start of the consultation that preceded the TUA 16, the government sought feedback in relation to a series of even more authoritarian changes, namely:

• to create a new criminal offence of “intimidation” on the picket line;

• to require unions to provide 14 days’ advance notice of all picketing and protest plans, including where they would take place, how many people would be involved, whether there would be “loudspeakers, props, banners etc.”, union plans to use networks such as Twitter and Facebook and the content of any blogs or websites in support of the action;

• to extend the Picketing Code to cover the use of social media during industrial disputes; and

• to require unions to report annually on their involvement with picketing and protest (as opposed to industrial action) during the year.

For the time being, these proposals have not been taken forward, and it is possible that their real purpose was to act as a smokescreen to obscure the main proposals – the raised balloting thresholds – rather than as serious legislative plans. Nevertheless, the plans reveal the alarmingly authoritarian rationale that lay behind the TUA 16, masked by benign appeals to “industrial democracy”.