Lockouts 





One form of industrial action is taken by the employer, called the “lockout”. This is defined in section 235(4), ERA 96 as the closure of a place of employment, the suspension of work, or an employer’s refusal to continue to employ employees as a result of a dispute, with a view to compelling employees, or to aid another employer in compelling its employees, to accept employment terms or conditions.



Lockouts are used to exert pressure on workers to accept redundancies or changes to terms and conditions. As explained above, where workers refuse to perform the full range of their contractual duties (that is, industrial action short of strike), the employer is likely to be allowed to send them home without pay (BT v Ticehurst and Thompson [1992] IRLR 219). This is one form of lockout.



Where there was no preceding industrial action or threat of it, any lockout is likely to be a breach of contract by the employer. In these circumstances, an employee who can show that they were ready, willing and able to work during the lockout period should be able to claim lost wages. However, an employee who leaves their job during a lockout is not allowed to claim to have been constructively dismissed for the purpose of claiming a redundancy payment (section 136(1)(2), ERA 96).



A lockout during official industrial action will impact on the calculation of the period of protection from unfair dismissal (see page 360). Continuity of employment is not broken by a lockout.