The Trade Disputes Act 1965 is an

Act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of parliame ...

of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

, which supported

closed shop A pre-entry closed shop (or simply closed shop) is a form of union security agreement under which the employer agrees to hire union members only, and employees must remain members of the union at all times to remain employed. This is different fr ...

practices in

industrial relations Industrial relations or employment relations is the multidisciplinary academic field that studies the employment relationship; that is, the complex interrelations between employers and employees, labor/trade unions, employer organizations, ...

. The principal effect was to reverse the legal position established by '' Rookes v Barnard'' in 1964, in which the threat of strike action from a union resulted in the sacking of a worker who had recently left that union. The

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminst ...

, acting as the highest court of appeal, held that the threat of strike action was unlawful intimidation. The

Trades Union Congress The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in England and Wales, representing the majority of trade unions. There are 48 affiliated unions, with a total of about 5.5 million members. Frances ...

was concerned that the case would set a precedent for lawsuits against trade unions in a wide range of circumstances. Civil law had been one of the main tools employers used against unions in their early days until the Trade Disputes Act 1906 gave unions immunity from certain

tort A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable ...

s (including conspiracy) when taken in pursuit of an industrial dispute. However, intimidation was not covered under the Trades Disputes Act, and it seemed possible that the ''Rookes vs Barnard'' judgment would support classifying a strike in any closed shop dispute as unlawful 'intimidation'. As a result, the Labour government of

Harold Wilson James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. He ...

introduced legislation to restore the status quo from before the case. The Act specified that a threat to withhold one's own labour or to induce others to do the same could give no cause for action in tort. However, a case of 'intimidation' in the everyday sense (for instance, a threat of physical violence) in the course of an industrial dispute would still be unlawful for the same reasons as set out in the case. The Conservatives sought to amend the legislation to exclude the protection if the dispute was regarding the continued employment of an individual. That was intended to undermine the practice of the closed shop, the subject of the original case. The closed shop was eroded by the Conservative government in the 1980s and eventually banned by the

Employment Act 1990 The Employment Act 1990 is a piece of industrial relations legislation of the United Kingdom. The Act banned closed shops, which had already been restricted by the Employment Act 1982 The Employment Act 1982 is an Act of the Parliament of the U ...

References

United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1965 {{UK-law-stub