Unfair Practice
Extract from paragraph 27A of Schedule A1 to the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992
Applies to England, Scotland and Wales
1) Each of the parties informed by the CAC under paragraph 25(9) must refrain from using any unfair practice.
2) A party uses an unfair practice if, with a view to influencing the result of the ballot, the party:
(a) offers to pay money or give money’s worth to a worker entitled to vote in the ballot in return for the worker’s agreement to vote in a particular way or to abstain from voting,
(b) makes an outcome-specific offer to a worker entitled to vote in the ballot,
(c) coerces or attempts to coerce a worker entitled to vote in the ballot to disclose –
(i) whether he intends to vote or to abstain from voting in the ballot, or
(ii) how he intends to vote, or how he has voted, in the ballot,
(d) dismisses or threatens to dismiss a worker,
(e) takes or threatens to take disciplinary action against a worker,
(f) subjects or threatens to subject a worker to any other detriment, or
(g) uses or attempts to use undue influence on a worker entitled to vote in the ballot.
3) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (2)(b) an “outcome-specific offer” is an offer to pay money or give money’s worth which:
(a) is conditional on the issuing by the CAC of a declaration that –
(i) the union is (or unions are) recognised as entitled to conduct collective bargaining on behalf of the bargaining unit, or
(ii) the union is (or unions are) not entitled to be so recognised, and
(b) is not conditional on anything which is done or occurs as a result of the declaration in question.
4) The duty imposed by this paragraph does not confer any rights on a worker; but that does not affect any other right which a worker may have.