Workplace Access Rights Undermined? Professor Keith Ewing Explains Problems with Employment Rights Bill Access Procedure

Professor Keith Ewing:

“ Businesses, employers will be laughing at unions all the way through the process, because they know that at the end of the day, they can keep the union out.”

This is a clip from Episode 5 of the IER’s Podcast ‘Strike Rights: Are UK Workers Getting a Raw Deal.’

Here, IER President, Professor Keith Ewing explains that while the trade union access provisions contained in the Employment Right Bill are welcome in principle, the procedure is flawed in both scope and enforcement.

As explained in the clip, the Bill provides that a trade union will be able to ask an employer to enter into an access agreement, and that if the employer refuses, the union will be able to complain to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), which can effectively impose an access arrangement on the employer.

However, as Professor Ewing highlights, there is effectively no enforceable duty on the employer to comply with such arrangements. This creates a significant loophole: employers can ignore access arrangements with little consequence.

In our briefing on the ERB, written by Professor Keith Ewing and Lord John Hendy, they wrote:

Here we find that there is currently no way by which the employer can be compelled to comply. If it is so minded, the union can make another reference to the CAC to have a financial penalty imposed on the employer. This will be done at the union’s own expense, and the procedure will, inevitably, be contested, which means that the costs to the union are likely to be significant.

Alongside access rights, the episode covers the Bill’s provisions for electronic balloting, as well as the right to strike, and whether the legislation meaningfully addresses the major barriers to trade union organising and strike action.

Listen to the full episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/strike-rights-are-uk-workers-getting-a-raw-deal/id1775682835?i=1000684840726

Find all episodes from the IER’s Podcast series here: https://www.ier.org.uk/the-ier-podcast/