NHS hospital managers may seek court orders to halt strikes

Unions fear use of British Airways-style tactics after employers’ group suggests that hospital trusts take legal advice Hospitals are being advised to consider blocking tactics to thwart as many as 700,000 staff taking industrial action on 30 November as part of the public sector day of action over pensions. Guidance from NHS Employers to the 400 hospital trusts and other care providers in England that it represents recommends they seek legal advice on preventing strikes. A document called Managing Industrial Disputes: Guidance for Employers in the NHS advises them to decide “if the unions may be acting unlawfully” and consider taking court action, depending on the risks and costs. Unions fear the advice will see hospitals seeking court orders to frustrate strikes by claiming that ballots have not been conducted in accordance with Britain’s tough employment laws. “This guidance does incite employers to consider using British Airways-style tactics and to try and trip unions up with legal technicalities,” said Rachael Maskell, a national officer for health with the union Unite, which represents about 100,000 NHS staff. BA has used trade union laws over the past 18 months to challenge strike ballots by cabin crew in the high court. Under the 1992 Trade Union and Labour Relations Act industrial action is illegal unless unions have complied with a range of legal responsibilities such as telling employers how many staff they are balloting, the result of the ballot and what type of action is planned, where and when. In 2009 a 12-day Christmas strike by BA cabin crew affiliated to Unite was thrown out because a ballot of more than 12,000 crew included 900 votes cast by employees who had taken voluntary redundancy, technically rendering their papers invalid. In 2010 a national rail strike at Network Rail by the RMT union was halted on a similar basis, when it transpired that the RMT had polled signal workers at defunct signal boxes. “We would be extremely concerned if this guidance could be interpreted as intimidating or designed to thwart the democratic process that trade unions are going through with their members,” said Lesley Mercer, director of employment services at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, which will decide next week whether to ballot its 35,000 members in the NHS about joining the day of action. Unions have recently been updating their records of members and of employers that would be affected by industrial action. Dean Royles, the director of NHS Employers, said that as well as wanting to minimise the impact on patient care, NHS organisations “will also want to ensure any action planned is lawful”. He also warned unions that “trade unions should be aware that the significant cost of industrial action – caused by factors such as the need to fill gaps in the workforce and reschedule elective operations – will only make it harder for the NHS to avoid job losses.” NHS Health Public sector pensions Public services policy Trade unions Public sector cuts Public finance Public sector pay Denis Campbell Dan Milmo guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 23, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.