Potential Industrial Action. Advice?

il gatto

Hi. I want to know if anyone has any experience of a similar situation to mine.
The day I was due back to work after Christmas, I received a letter informing me the business was closed for a month while the boss decided what he would do with the business. It was the last twist in a debacle of pay cuts, ambiguous rosters, mis-information etc. The way the staff were being treated led many to join a trade union. The trade union are adament that multiple employment laws have been broken and they want to go down the road of industrial action.
The problem some of the staff/union members have is that they also work in another business that the same person owns. As the original business seems unlikely to re-open, there is a chance the picket would be placed on the other business, pending a possible injunction against such a move. The members who work in the second business are between a rock and a hard place. The union rep has stated that they would have to be in the picket, which would entail standing outside the second business on a day they are rostered to work. This could lead to losing their job there and worse, should the department of Social Welfare find out (and they would, believe me) that people who had work on a particular day refused to work, it could jeporadise their unemployment payments.
Some of the people in this situation are considering leaving the union, which would then lead to a lack of representation should a dispute over redundency and the thorney issue of crossing the picket.
I know it's complicated and I'm not looking for legal advice, but I'd like to hear from anybody with some experience of a similar situation.

Shelflife

Im not sure that you would be allowed to picket the other business if its a separate legal entity.

im not sure what picketing a business thats closed down would achieve either, the union would want to get a decent game paln together and make sure that you are all properly protected.

il gatto

Shelflife wrote: »

Im not sure that you would be allowed to picket the other business if its a separate legal entity.

im not sure what picketing a business thats closed down would achieve either, the union would want to get a decent game paln together and make sure that you are all properly protected.

My thoughts as well. It's a bit of a mess, all told.

cee_jay

il gatto wrote: »

The union rep has stated that they would have to be in the picket, which would entail standing outside the second business on a day they are rostered to work. This could lead to losing their job there and worse, should the department of Social Welfare find out (and they would, believe me) that people who had work on a particular day refused to work, it could jeporadise their unemployment payments.

Also bear in mind that if you are involved in an industrial dispute, I don't think you qualify for social welfare at all.

gerrycollins

apart from what shelfife has mentioned staff cannot just down tools and picket. there has to be a process where by the last resort is the picket line.

neogotation,repersentation etc also the employer does not have to reconise the trade union and may cause problems for the union themselve if it prevents a working business from carring on its daily activities.

unJustMary

il gatto wrote: »

The trade union are adament that multiple employment laws have been broken and they want to go down the road of industrial action.

The trade-union staff who are recommending industrial action to you need to be reminded that the strength of a union is its members, and that you, the members, will be the ones making the decisions about what action to take.

In the current economic climate, I'm not sure that many of you will be keen to go down the industrial action route, especially given the situation you describe. So they might like to come up with some more acceptable strategies.