Can employers hire strike breaking labour?
In 1996 the International Labour Organisation (ILO) said: “The hiring of workers to break a strike in a sector which cannot be regarded as an essential sector in the strict sense of the term, constitutes a serious violation of freedom of association.” Hiring strike breakers is therefore a violation of Convention 87, which the UK has signed up to. Other regulations in the UK say that agencies should not supply strike breakers. This does not apply if the agency does not (and could not) know that the original worker was on strike. The proposed Bill would extend those regulations by making it unlawful for employers to hire workers to break a strike. Why are injunctions so easy to obtain here? Both the ILO and the Council of Europe have condemned the ease with which the courts here grant interim injunctions to employers. The problem is that the law says employers only have to show that there is a “serious issue to be tried” later. The Bill will change that so the employer has to show they a
