The right to strike in the UK



Under UK law, there has never been a positive legal right to strike, or to take other forms of industrial action. Instead, workers are protected by “immunities” from a civil claim in the courts, for example for breach of contract, if they take specific forms of industrial action that would otherwise be unlawful, as long as they follow a tightly prescribed series of rules. 



Industrial action laws cover not just strikes but also lockouts, go-slows, working to rule, and refusing to cross picket lines. Overtime bans (even where overtime is voluntary) are normally treated as industrial action, since the aim is to pressure the employer to do – or not to do – something (Ticehurst v British Telecommunications plc [19920 IRLR 219).


As well as being highly restrictive, UK strike laws are out of date. Like most statutory employment laws, they were designed for the world of direct continuous full-time employment and have failed to keep pace with the growing fragmentation of the workforce, including outsourcing, restructuring and false self-employment.


It is not unusual for groups of workers, including agency workers, to work alongside each other, doing the same or similar work but employed by different organisations and therefore unable to support each other through industrial action. Secondary or solidarity action (i.e. industrial action in support of the workers of another employer) is banned in the UK. The ban has many important implications, including making it much harder to organise industrial action in the context of a TUPE transfer (see Chapter 12). 



The UK’s industrial action laws are also out of date because of the government’s consistent refusal to allow unions to move away from postal balloting, known to depress turnout. Here, at least, an important concession was won during the passage of the TUA 16. A review into electronic balloting is to report to parliament by December 2017 (see box on page 198).



Some categories of worker are forbidden by law to strike in the UK. These include members of the armed services, prison officers, police officers and civil servants working for the National Crime Agency.