DISMISSAL RELATING TO TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP (Hansard, 28 July 1980)

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Patrick Mayhew)

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

The amendment will ensure that, where there is to be a ballot on the introduction of a closed shop, existing non-union employees cannot be disfranchised by defining the class of employees entitled to vote by reference to membership of a trade union.

The introduction of a closed shop is of central concern to all those in the grades of employment to be covered, and they should all have the opportunity to vote on its introduction. It should not be possible to gerrymander the ballot so that those who may not wish to join the closed shop have no opportunity to vote against it.

The amendment provides that in determining for the purposes of closed shop legislation contained in the new subsection (3B) of section 58 of the 1978 Act and the new section 58A (2) whether a person belongs to the relevant class of employees any restriction of the class by reference to membership or objection to membership of a trade union shall be disregarded.

The amendment was introduced in the light of a ballot held by the Central regional council, Stirling, and I am indebted to my hon. Friend the Member 1176 for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. Walker) for information about that. It was raised during Question Time last week by my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. MacKay).

Had the closed shop been introduced, it is possible that promotion and other employment advantages could have come to depend on membership of the closed shop, while new employees would have been encouraged to join, thus isolating and disadvantaging non-union members who had never been consulted. Fortunately, in the event, NALGO members who were balloted turned down the proposal in a 75 per cent. poll by 686 votes to 548.

We believe that this is an important amendment to the Bill, and I commend it to the House.

§ Mr. Harold Walker (Doncaster)

This amendment is yet another attempt to weaken trade union organisation and at the same time further to weaken organised collective bargaining. At present, an employer and a union can voluntarily enter into a union membership agreement for any such class of employees as they may mutually agree. As the Lord Advocate said when moving the amendment in another place, the 1974 Act says that the class may be so identified by reference to any characteristics whatsoever".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 July 1980; Vol. 411, c. 956.] Yet it is now proposed that this should be restricted, in so far as a union membership agreement in future cannot be defined by reference to trade union membership.

Frankly, I find it difficult to understand the Government's reasoning. Throughout the proceedings—[Interruption.] I did not know that the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) knew so much about these matters that he could sit in his place and squawk so late at night. If he listened, he might learn something.

I find it difficult to understand the Government's reasoning, because throughout the proceeds on the Bill they and their supporters have attacked union membership agreements. Among other things, they argued that they lead to people being coerced against their will into trade union membership. But now they 1177 wish to prevent an employer and a union from entering into a mutually satisfactory arrangement which would leave out the people who apparently do not wish to join a union.

As it left this House, the Bill strengthened the hand of the non-unionist and, indeed, the anti-trade unionist It now returns from another place giving power to the non-unionist and the anti-trade unionist to interfere in collective bargaining arrangements that are sought to be made between an employer and union members. It is no less worse that this sort of provision takes industrial relations more and more down the road of legal intervention, which inevitably leads directly to the courts. The Secretary of State's step by step approach increasingly takes us away from voluntarism and common sense agreement between management and men, and increasingly towards a more legalistic regulation of collective bargaining.

Their Lordships share with the Government a lack of understanding of the real nature of shop floor bargaining, and I ask the House to reject these proposals.