Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses (Amendment) Regulations 2022 — House of Lords, 2022-07-18
Topic: Labor
John Hendy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Collins. Wages are rising at 4% per annum and prices are increasing at 11% per annum. It is a sad thing that the Government’s response is to take yet further measures to stop workers exercising the only leverage they have to maintain or even improve their standard of living. The Minister frankly admitted this evening that the purpose of the statutory instrument in relation to damages was to deter unions from striking, and that would be achieved by increasing the cap on damages by 400%. The point that I wish to raise with the Minister is that this further regulation of trade union freedom may well put the United Kingdom in breach of its international legal obligations, and it is to that that I will restrict my remarks My noble friend Lord Collins mentioned Article 3 of Convention 87 of the ILO, which is the most fundamental of all the ILO conventions, the international standards of labour. Article 3 guarantees that unions and employers’ associations can organise their activities "free from any interference which would restrict this right or impede the lawful exercise thereof." Among the activities that unions must be free to organise is, of course, industrial action. Consequently, the relevant supervisory committee of the ILO—the quasi-judicial Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations—has said: "Provisions allowing employers to dismiss strikers or replace them temporarily or for an indeterminate period are a serious impediment to the exercise of the right to strike." My noble friend Lord Collins mentioned a decision of the Committee on Freedom of Association to similar effect. The authoritative interpretation of conventions by these committees is recognised not only by the European Court of Human Rights and other courts, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, but by our domestic courts. Those committees have held for some time that, among other non-conformities, British law currently does not comply with the requirements of Convention 87, Article 3 because workers taking industrial action are inadequately protected I hope that the Minister is not going to say that he disagrees with the rulings of those two ILO committees. They are the supervisory bodies of Convention 87, and it would sound like the first-year law student who writes an essay saying that he disagrees with a judgment of the Supreme Court. I am sure the Minister will not be saying anything like that I wish to make an additional point before I sit down. Breach of an ILO convention is bad enough, particularly one ratified by and binding on the United Kingdom, of which the United Kingdom was the very first signatory back in 1948. Secondly, the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement of 2021 involved the Government undertaking post Brexit to comply with various international treaties by which they were already bound. The effect is that non-compliance with these treaties is not only a breach of them but is unlawful on the additional ground that it is a breach of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Paragraph 2 of Article 399 states: "each Party commits to respecting, promoting and effectively implementing the internationally recognised core labour standards, as defined in the fundamental ILO Conventions" Paragraph 5 states: "Each Party commits to implementing all the ILO Conventions that the United Kingdom and the Member States have respectively ratified and the different provisions of the European Social Charter that, as members of the Council of Europe, the Member States and the United Kingdom have respectively accepted." The UK has the obligation not only to respect and promote Convention 87, but also to effectively implement it. Those obligations surely prevent the UK adding an additional obstacle to the effective exercise of the right to strike by allowing agency strike breakers.