International criticism of the right to strike in the UK


The UK is increasingly out of step with international laws and conventions in its approach to industrial action, including ILO Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise, ratified by the UK in 1949. Most recently, the ILO’s Committee of Experts spoke out against the TUA16, even before the Act became law, for undermining Convention 87 and Convention 151 on Labour Relations in Public Services (see Chapter 5). 


UK strike laws have also been criticised by the European Committee on Social Rights (ECSR). In January 2015, the ESCR, issued recommendations through its basic reporting procedure on UK strike law, which it judged unsatisfactory.


The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has confirmed that the human right to freedom of association under Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights includes the right to bargain collectively (Demir and Baykara v Turkey [2009] IRLR 766) and the right to strike (RMT v UK [2014] ECHR 366 and Tymoshenko v Ukraine [2014] ECHR 1016). 


However, the ECHR has refused to outlaw the UK ban on secondary action, ruling instead that national courts have a wide “margin of appreciation” (in other words, significant freedom) to make laws to limit secondary action.