Iain Dale calls for a debate on the options for limiting strikes in economic sectors which provide ‘essential services’:

Trade unions have an important part to play in trying to represent their members’ interests and individual rights should not be trampled on by the state. But there has to be some balance.

Perhaps in return for those benefits which are decreasingly available to workers in the private sector, some greater measure of discipline and control should be exercised in a wider range of service sectors where the general public are entitled to continue to receive "essential services " however they are finally defined .

I think that I am right in saying that there is no ‘right to strike’ under UK law. Instead we have given workers (and trades unions) certain legal immunities when they withdraw their labour. Basically, they can not be sued by employers or anyone else for damage caused by their actions.

If someone deliberately or negligently causes me loss in other areas, I have a cause of action in tort; careless or obnoxious behaviour should have and does have Consequences. In the case of strikes, it doesn’t – it is arguably rewarded.

This on the face of it is grotesque. If I am heading to a vital meeting which might lead to a new contract and new jobs created, and I can not get there solely because some or other group of workers has decided to strike and causes mass disruption, why should I not be able to sue them for my resultant losses? Or for the extra petrol costs I incur by sitting in traffic jams, or buying new air-tickets and losing the cost of the flight I missed?

As we move into an era where for environmental and other efficiency reasons we all rely on ‘just in time’ working practices, what is the justification for maintaining this immunity? The ever-tighter networks of speedy delivery and mutual interdependence round the planet require the law to create incentives for ambient levels of personal responsibility to go up, not to ring-fence disruptive behaviour from its consequences.

Here’s my idea.

The UK formally agrees that workers individually and collectively have the right to withdraw their labour in protest at some or other working practice – and not get sacked for doing so. To that extent they get a ‘right to strike’ (again in the form of a legal immunity from dismissal).

In return for having that basic job protection, they (and any organisation to which they belong which has supported or incited the strike) lose their immunity to civil actions for damages from employers and/or others directly affected by their actions should those actions last for more than a symbolic amount of time (eg one hour max).

The overall effect of which would be to make Johnny Union-Boss think twice before calling for strike action, if his fat union salary and financial privileges might find themselves the legal target of many enraged people damaged by what he has done.

Some might say that this scheme would empower greedy employers too much. OK, so bung in a clause which imposes compulsory third-party mediation and/or arbitration as the way of resolving any dispute which ends up in a strike. That way disgruntled workers would have a guaranteed vehicle for getting substantive grievances looked at by someone independent and empowered to order changes – if the grievances are shown to be justified.

The beauty of my scheme is that we don’t ‘ban’ strikes or anything else. Banning stuff is for collectivist fascists/communists.

We simply decide that the time has come for every adult in this country to be treated as such, maturely accepting responsibility for whatever positive or negative outcomes s/he directly causes.