Managing Employment Relations

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Managing Employment Relations

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Table of Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................................2
Incidences and Conduct of Collective Industrial Disputes.........................................................3
Impact of Trade Union Act.........................................................................................................3
Negative Implications.............................................................................................................5
Analysis...................................................................................................................................6
Recommendations for Management of Employment Relations...............................................6
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The Trade Union Act 2016 (hereinafter referred as ‘the Act’) is a significant piece of
legislation the United Kingdom which is implemented by the government with an objective
to protect people from undemocratic industrial action. This Act is implemented because the
union Unite is described as in its “dark day” which negatively affects workers in England
(Ewing and Hendy, 2016). Through this Act, the government implemented a number of new
rules and policies which are targeted towards making the industrial act lawful. This Act is a
part of the UK labour law which was enacted the David Cameron administration. Through
this act, the provisions gave under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act
1992 is amended. New policies and rules were implemented in this Act with an objective to
make the freedom of association and collective action harder for parties (Bogg, 2016). The
objective of this report is to evaluate the incidences and conduct of collective industry
dispute while taking these considerations the provisions of this Act to determine how these
policies have changed after the introduction of this Act. This report will also evaluate how
this act has given rise in leverage tactics and how these factors affect the rights of parties.
This report will also make recommendations for the management of employment relations
for organisations involved in industrial disputes. This report will evaluate how industrial
dispute, childcare and other factors affect their ability of employees to attend work and
what actions can be taken to address these issues.

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Incidences and Conduct of Collective Industrial Disputes
Industrial dispute is a major issue which affects many people and corporations operating in
the country, and it also affects their operations. In 2017, more than 276,000 working days
were lost by companies in the UK as a result of industrial disputes (ONS, 2018). Although the
process has been made because it is the sixth lowest annual total when compared to the
records that go till 1891; however, it is still a major issue which is a result of lack of
management of industrial disputes. Due to these disputes, the transportation and storage
sector suffered as well which accounted for 68 per cent for all working days in the UK.
Mainly these working days were lost as a result of strikes in public transport due to the lack
of management of trade disputes (ONS, 2018).
In 2017, around 33,000 workers were involved in labour disputes which were a result of the
loss of working days in the country; however, it is a positive number when compared to the
records that began in 1893 (ONS, 2018). The study conducted by the Office of National
Statistics founded that there are three main measures which are used in order to measure
labour disputes in the United Kingdom which include stoppages, workers involved and
working days lost. These factors are compared with the industry, size, cause, duration and
region in order to measure the results. There were 79 stoppages in 2017 in the UK which is
the lowest number when compared with records that begin in 1891 (ONS, 2018). There are
various factors that contribute to labour disputes in the United Kingdom that range from
wage, health and safety, holidays and other issues.
Impact of Trade Union Act
One of the key objectives of the implementation of this act is to make sure that the number
of trade disputes in the country is reduced and they are resolved in a timely manner. This
objective is achieved by this Act by implementing provisions regarding the lawfulness of
industrial actions. As per the new rules, the industrial action will only be considered as
lawful when there has been a ballot turnout of at least 50 per cent (Ford and Novitz, 2016).
The provisions regarding these policies are given under section 2 of the Act. It provides that
in certain circumstances, the members who are not in favour of industrial action are better
off not voting then compared to voting “no” on the matter. This can be understood by the