Unions back motion calling for second Employment Rights Bill

Trade unions have called on the government to implement the Employment Rights Act in full and introduce further legislation to strengthen workers rights.

In a motion passed unanimously by delegates at the TUC Congress in Brighton, unions backed demands to ensure the Employment Rights Act is implemented effectively through “strong, enforceable regulations”, as well as campaigning for a second Employment Rights Bill, that “introduces genuine sectoral collective bargaining, strengthens rights for all workers and addresses remaining gaps in employment protections and enforcement”.

The motion also called on the TUC to campaign for the removal of the 50 percent ballot threshold and “any linkage between the removal of the threshold and the implementation of e-balloting”.

The ballot threshold, introduced in 1992, requires at least half of eligible union members to vote in a strike action for the result to be legally valid.

Provisions to repeal the requirement are included in the Employment Rights Act but are not currently in force, with a commencement date yet to be announced by the government.

Once repealed, a ballot for strike action would be valid if a simple majority of voting members back industrial action.

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Matt Wrack, general secretary of the NASWUT, praised the Labour government’s efforts to improve workers’ rights, but hit out at the government’s failure to deliver on its pledge to scrap the 50 percent ballot threshold within its first 100 days.

“We were promised that legislation to abolish [the threshold] would be introduced within 100 days of the general election. So why, two years down the line, is the 50 percent threshold still in place?

“I don’t know how ministers count 100 days, but by any standard of arithmetic two years is significantly beyond the timescale.

“Let’s tell the government; no more delays, deliver the election pledges and abolish the thresholds immediately.”

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