London Underground Ltd v National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers

Trade union notices of ballots and industrial action must be construed in light of their purpose: enabling the employer to identify the affected workforce, make plans, minimise disruption and communicate with employees.

Where a union possesses information about the number, category or workplace of affected employees, it must provide that information even if it considers it of little practical value. Information is possessed by the union when held by an official acting under its rules and normal procedures, including relevant branch secretaries. Imperfect or incomplete information must generally still be supplied, unless it amounts to misinformation. These requirements are not an oppressive or disproportionate interference with Article 11 rights.

The union organised ballots and proposed discontinuous strikes arising from concerns about the proposed public-private partnership for London Underground. London Underground and related companies sought urgent injunctions, alleging that the union’s notices failed to comply with Part V of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

Gibbs J granted injunctions restraining the union from inducing industrial action unless supported by a compliant ballot. The union appealed and sought permission to adduce further evidence. The central issues were what information the union possessed, the minimum information required concerning numbers, categories and workplaces, and the extent to which usefulness to the employer qualified those requirements. An Article 11 human-rights challenge was also raised.

Robert Walker LJ delivered the leading judgment. Dyson LJ and Aldous LJ agreed. Permission to appeal was granted, but the appeal was dismissed.

1. Purpose of the notice provisions. Sections 226A and 234A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 retained the purpose identified in Blackpool and the Fylde College v National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education [1994] ICR 648. The employer must be able to identify the relevant part or parts of its workforce, first to seek to dissuade employees from taking action and then to plan for and minimise disruption. The 1999 amendments changed the means of giving information, including by confirming that names need not be supplied, but did not change that objective.
2. Minimum information. Sections 226A(3A) and 234A(5A) require a union to provide information in its possession about numbers, categories and workplaces. A union cannot omit such information merely because it believes that it would not help the employer. The information is an irreducible statutory minimum. The words indicating that the notice must contain such information “at least” leave room for additional information in special circumstances.
3. Possession and attribution. Information is possessed by the union if it is held by an official acting under the union’s rules and normal operating procedures in maintaining records for union purposes. That included information held by headquarters staff and relevant branch secretaries. The court applied the approach in Meridian Global Fund Management Asia v Securities Commission [1995] 2 AC 500, while declining to give wider guidance on untested evidence. Informal knowledge held only by local representatives would ordinarily fall outside the rule, although an exceptional case could arise.
4. Evidence and human rights. Records need not be complete or wholly accurate. Unless they amount to positive misinformation, imperfect information must be supplied where it can be collated without oppressive effort. The fuller evidence showed that RMT possessed substantially more relevant information than its notices disclosed, so Gibbs J’s conclusion was inevitable. The Article 11 argument failed. The principles in National Union of Belgian Police v Belgium (1975) 1 EHRR 578 and Schmidt v Sweden (1976) 1 EHRR 632 recognised that trade-union action may be regulated by national law. The statutory requirements were neither oppressive nor disproportionate.

The injunctions were upheld. The appeal was dismissed with costs below and in the Court of Appeal. Permission to appeal to the House of Lords was refused.

1. Court of Appeal. The court granted permission to appeal, admitted further evidence, and dismissed the appeal with costs: [2001] EWCA Civ 211.
2. High Court, Queen’s Bench Division. Gibbs J granted injunctions on 1 February 2001 restraining the union from inducing strike action unless the statutory requirements were met. No citation for that decision was stated in the judgment.