Legislation against trade union activities:
One major influence on strike activity over the years has been the amount of legislation the government has created in order to limit and disrupt trade union activity. Between 1980 and 1993 there were six Acts of Parliament which increasingly restricted unions' ability to undertake lawful industrial action. Secondary action, better known as 'sympathy strikes', was outlawed and picketing was restricted. Ballots were needed for official industrial action from 1984 and these had to be postal from 1993. Although unions have learned to use ballots as part of the negotiating process, they have imposed increasing financial costs, while the requirement to give employers seven days' notice further reduced unions' ability to respond quickly and potentially reduced the effectiveness of any action they took. (Union History, 2008).
During the UK’s last general election Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party pledged to repeal all anti-union laws going back to Margaret Thatcher’s days as prime minister. Shadow business minister, Laura Pidcock added ““I understand that the Labour Party has not always been the best ally of the trade union movement. New Labour, with its three parliamentary majorities, could have repealed the restrictive anti-union Thatcher legislation. But now, under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to right that wrong and we will do just that.” (personnel today, 2019).
The first law passed by the conservatives in the 1980’s was the Employment Act 1980. This Act restricted lawful picketing and encouraged secret balloting in order to vote for strike action, accessing public funding and electing union officials. This Act also removed immunity from secondary action unless it was designed to put direct pressure on the employer involved in the dispute. Another law that the Conservative’s pasts in the 1980’s was the Employment Act 1982. This Outlawed political strikes by limiting immunity to trade disputes which "relate wholly or mainly to" industrial matters (rather than just being "connected with" such issues) (House of Commons Library, 2017).
In 2010 the Transport union RMT submitted papers to the European Court of Human Rights that challenges the UK’s anti trade union legislation stating that their laws regarding strikes is in breach of Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The union will be represented in the Court by RMTs standing counsel John Hendy QC and Marcus Pilgerstorfer, instructed by Thompsons Solicitors (RMT,2010). The Court decided that the cogent arguments adduced by the RMT on trade union solidarity and efficacy were not sufficient to persuade it that the ban was disproportionate. However, the court noted factors counting in favour of the RMT. One was the practice across European States, illustrating that the UK was one of a small group of European countries which adopted an outright ban on secondary strikes, at the far end of the spectrum. Another was the repeated criticisms of the UK’s prohibition of sympathy action by the ILO Committee of Experts and by the decisions of the European Committee on Social Rights on the Social Charter. (Oxford Human Rights Hub, 2014). This challenge by the RMT illustrates the lengths that trade unions will now go to in order to fight for what they believe and will fight any future legislation created to limit their actions.

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