UK trade union law

Closed shops have been illegal in the UK since 92, so yes joining the union is optional. Not only that but there are often more than one union in a workplace, for example a broad union like Unite or Unison and one thats more industry specific, further splitting the workforce.

I don't know anything about US trade union law so can't really compare with UK. However in the UK the government is trying to change the laws so that a strike ballot is only successful with 50% of the entire workplace rather than just the union membership as it is now. Considering the lack of closed shops this will be another very limiting piece of legislation. That or it will lead to loads of wildcats!

you are correct that closed shops are illegal, so yes joining the union is always optional, and like the poster above says you often get different unions with recognition for staff on different grades. So in universities, unison are recognised for support staff, and UCU for teaching staff.

By law, you only have to have one union recognised per bargaining unit (bargaining units can be a whole workplace, or a particular team, or everyone on a particular job grade for example). So sometimes employers will only recognise one really crap union in order to block a better union from getting recognition.

However, the poster is incorrect on the proposed law changes. Firstly, I think the proposed change isn't going to happen. Secondly, the proposed change is not to make it 50% of the workplace (that would be impossible, as the union may have less than 50% of the membership), but to make strikes legal only if more than 50% of union members vote to strike. At the moment you just have to get more than 50% of union members who vote to vote yes. But this is often on quite low turnouts, of 30-40%. So effectively this would block almost all strikes.

Jesus, there is a fuck lot to say on this.

Very briefly, the closed shop is illegal in "right to work" states in the US, don't forget. Unlike the US, no-strike clauses basically don't exist. (This comes from, in my opinion, from the British bourgeoisie's approach to wildcats--seeing industrial unrest as inevitable and trying to keep it always within the unions. As opposed to the US where going back to the 30s, the unions promoted "a CIO contract is a guarantee against strikes".) If wildcats occur, however, UK unions can be fucked legally and financially if they don't "repudiate" any wildcats "in good faith".

The UK is (still) much more strongly social democratic (even things like the citizenship test big up the trade unions). So the sorts of things that come with a union shop in the States (due process in disciplinaries, grievance procedures, right to representation, etc) are built into UK law. Unions (and this includes the UK IWW) often use workers' right to individual representation as a bulwark to get into shops since the union doesn't need to recognised by the employer to represent workers in D&Gs. This also means, however, that an effective militant can act like a rep in a non-union workplace without there being a union (for better or worse).

Finally, I think it's pretty important to recognise that the "concerted action" clause is US labor law is pretty fucking powerful. For those who don't know: employment in the US is "at will". This means you can be sacked without justification, recourse, or due cause for any reason: anything from talking back to your boss, a manager disliking which way the stripes on your tie run, or for complaining about conditions (with the exceptions of "protected statuses" like gender, race, sexuality, etc). But if you complain about conditions (or even take actions!) with one or more co-workers it becomes legally protected "concerted activity", regardless of a union presence on the job or not.

Now, or course, this doesn't mean for a second that folks don't get fired for concerted activity. They do, of course, but legally, it has serious potential.

Ah ok. thanks for clarifying. I take every doom-mongering report I read as genuine these days...

No that's not correct any more - if it was ever the case.

For instance, I work with a housing company where my union, Unite, the GMB, and UCATT all have recognition for craft (what used to be known as "red book") workers.

Vanilla, it is the case. Of course many employers do allow multiple unions to have recognition, but by law they only have to allow one.

I can look up the names of some cases later, but for example IIRC at least one News International title has a recognition agreement with a scab journalism union (which has hardly any members) in order to block the NUJ from getting recognition.

(Anyway, I thought you were a union bureaucrat?)

Vanilla, here's an article about UK trade union recognition law, which mentions the News International issue:

http://www.ier.org.uk/blog/uk-recognition-laws-need-amending-prevent-wapping-bad-practices

Sorry I thought you were saying only one union could represent a bargaining unit, not that an employer only had to recognise one - you are of course correct as in the case of the Daily Mirror and the British Association of Journalists.

(I am a bureaucrat, hence with not for)

"UK unions can be fucked legally and financially if they don't "repudiate" any wildcats "in good faith" "

24 hours to issue a repudiation of unofficial action.

It should be added that unlike with official strikes where all strikers are protected, those who engage in unofficial strike action individuals can be selectively sacked without any recourse.

I don't think that's quite right. They would still be able to claim victimisation if they were treated differently in a disciplinary matter than people doing the same thing, regardless of what they were disciplined for. Of course, it's very difficult to prove victimisation and often not worth the effort.

After your comment i checked it out and i see you are right. Mea culpa , my apologies

"You can complain about unfair dismissal if you are dismissed: for an automatically unfair reason (eg because of your duties as a health and safety representative), while taking part in the industrial action but others taking part are not dismissed, for taking part in unprotected industrial action, after you stopped taking part. Just because you can make a claim for unfair dismissal does not mean it will be successful."
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/TradeUnions/Industrialaction/DG_179248

Years of reps misleading me about their particular vulnerabilty...grrrrrr

"after you stopped" not during - that's the key in my opinion.