‘The first part of this blog outlined the facts and decision in the Supreme Court case, Secretary of State for Business and Trade v Mercer, as well as the approach the Court took in distinguishing between private sector and public sector employment. The second part of this blog considers the approach of the Supreme Court in distinguishing between the “core” and “essential” in respect of trade union rights. While the reasoning of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is sometimes a little opaque, these two terms are not interchangeable in RMT. The right to strike is not yet designated as an “essential” trade union freedom, though it is an integral prop to other “essential” rights such as the right to make representations and the right to bargain collectively. In RMT, the distinction between “core” and “accessory” is being used in a different sense, to emphasise gradations of importance within a specific right (“essential” or otherwise). In RMT, for example, the Court was drawing a distinction between primary strike action, which was “core” and deserving of stronger protection, and “secondary” strike action which was “accessory” and therefore amenable to a wider margin of appreciation. The situation in Mercer involved a primary strike, and hence applying RMT it was at the “core” of the right to strike. This conceptual distinction is therefore internal to the right to strike. It is very likely that the right to bargain collectively, essential in Article 11 terms, also has “core” and “accessory” elements to it.’

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Oxford Human Right Hub, 10th May 2024

Source: ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk

‘Individual strikers are protected from dismissal where they are dismissed for participating in “protected” (i.e lawful and official) industrial action, under s. 238A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULRCA). However, there are many ways in which employers can penalise individual strikers other than through dismissal, such as through demotion, suspension, fines, disciplinary warnings, and disproportionate pay deductions. In Secretary of State for Business and Trade v Mercer, the Supreme Court considered if a worker proposing to strike was protected from “detriment” under TULRCA 1992, s. 146. This was because it concerned her participation in the “activities of an independent trade union”. The Supreme Court concluded that strike action was excluded from s.146, principally because it was not “at an appropriate time” [44]-[45]. This meant that there was no statutory protection for the claimant, Ms Mercer, who (on the assumed facts) had been suspended for activities connected to a lawful and official strike. The effect of this was to create a zone of impunity for employers engaged in the selective victimisation of individual strikers.’

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Oxford Human Rights Hub, 10th May 2024

Source: ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk