Employment Act 1980

Restrictions on legal liability

16 Picketing

(1) For section 15 of the 1974 Act there shall be substituted—

“15 Peaceful picketing.

(1) It shall be lawful for a person in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute to attend—

(a) at or near his own place of work, or

(b) if he is an official of a trade union, at or near the place of work of a member of that union whom he is accompanying and whom he represents,

for the purpose only of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or peacefully persuading any person to work or abstain from working.

(2) If a person works or normally works—

(a) otherwise than at any one place, or

(b) at a place the location of which is such that attendance there for a purpose mentioned in subsection (1) above is impracticable,

his place of work for the purposes of that subsection shall be any premises of his employer from which he works or from which his work is administered.

(3) In the case of a worker who is not in employment and whose last employment was terminated in connection with a trade dispute, subsection (1) above shall in relation to that dispute have effect as if any reference to his place of work were a reference to his former place of work.

(4) A person who is an official of a trade union by virtue only of having been elected or appointed to be a representative of some of the members of the union shall be regarded for the purposes of subsection (1) above as representing only those members ; but otherwise an official of a trade union shall be regarded for those purposes as representing all its members.”

(2) Nothing in section 13 of the 1974 Act shall prevent an act done in the course of picketing from being actionable in tort unless it is done in the course of attendance declared lawful by section 15 of that Act.

(3) In subsection (2) above " tort" has as respects Scotland the same meaning as in the 1974 Act.

17 Secondary action

(1) Nothing in section 13 of the 1974 Act shall prevent an act from being actionable in tort on a ground specified in subsection (1)(a) or (b) of that section in any case where—

(a) the contract concerned is not a contract of employment, and

(b) one of the facts relied upon for the purpose of establishing liability is that there has been secondary action which is not action satisfying the requirements of subsection (3), (4) or (5) below.

(2) For the purposes of this section there is secondary action in relation to a trade dispute when, and only when, a person—

(a) induces another to break a contract of employment or interferes or induces another to interfere with its performance, or

(b) threatens that a contract of employment under which he or another is employed will be broken or its performance interfered with, or that he will induce another to break a contract of employment or to interfere with its performance,

if the employer under the contract of employment is not a party to the trade dispute.

(3) Secondary action satisfies the requirements of this subsection if—

(a) the purpose or principal purpose of the secondary action was directly to prevent or disrupt the supply during the dispute of goods or services between an employer who is a party to the dispute- and the employer under the contract of employment to which the secondary action relates; and

(b) the secondary action (together with any corresponding action relating to other contracts of employment with the same employer) was likely to achieve that purpose.

(4) Secondary action satisfies the requirements of this subsection if—

(a) the purpose or principal purpose of the secondary action was directly to prevent or disrupt the supply during the dispute of goods or services between any person and an associated employer of an employer who is a party to the dispute; and

(b) the goods or services are in substitution for goods or services which but for the dispute would have fallen to be supplied to or by the employer who is a party to the dispute ; and

(c) the employer under the contract of employment to which the secondary action relates is either the said associated employer or the other party to the supply referred to in paragraph (a) above ; and

(d) the secondary action (together with any corresponding action relating to other contracts of employment with the same employer) was likely to achieve the purpose referred to in paragraph (a) above.

(5) Secondary action satisfies the requirements of this subsection if it is done in the course of attendance declared lawful by section 15 of the 1974 Act—

(a) by a worker employed (or, in the case of a worker not in employment, last employed) by a party to the dispute, or

(b) by a trade union official whose attendance is lawful by virtue of subsection (1)(b) of that section.

(6) In subsections (3)(a) and (4)(a) above—

(a) references to the supply of goods or services between two persons are references to the supply of goods or services by one to the other in pursuance of a contract between them subsisting at the time of the secondary action, and

(b) references to directly preventing or disrupting the supply are references to preventing or disrupting it otherwise than by means of preventing or disrupting the supply of goods or services by or to any other person.

(7) Expressions used in this section and in the 1974 Act have the same meanings in this section as in that Act; and for the purposes of this section an employer who is a member of an employers' association which is a party to a trade dispute shall by virtue of his membership be regarded as a party to the dispute if he is represented in the dispute by the association, but not otherwise.

(8) Subsection (3) of section 13 of the 1974 Act shall cease to have effect.

18 Acts to compel trade union membership

(1) Nothing in section 13 of the 1974 Act shall prevent an act to which this section applies from being actionable in tort on a ground specified in subsection (1)(a) or (b) of section 13 in any case where—

(a) the contract concerned is a contract of employment, or

(b) the contract concerned is not a contract of employment but one of the facts relied upon for the purpose of establishing liability is that any person has—

(i) induced another to break a contract of employment or interfered or induced another to interfere with its performance, or

(ii) threatened that a contract of employment under which he or another is employed will be broken or its performance interfered with, or that he will induce another to break a contract of employment or to interfere with its performance.

(2) This section applies to an act done for the purpose of compelling workers to become members of a particular trade union or of one of two or more particular trade unions, if none of those workers works for the same employer or at the same place as the employee working under the contract of employment referred to in subsection (1) above.

(3) Expressions used in this section and in the 1974 Act have the same meanings in this section as in that Act.