The Employment Relations Act 1999 And International Treaties

EDM number 1363 in 2002-03, proposed by John McDonnell on 09/06/2003.

That this House notes with appreciation that the Government intends to use the opportunity of its Review of the Employment Relations Act 1999 to amend existing legislation so as to bring the law on anti-union discrimination into compliance with its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; notes that the Review fails to remedy the multiple breaches of other international laws which the UK has ratified, in particular, ILO Conventions 87 and 98, article 6(4) of the European Social Charter of the Council of Europe, and article 8(1)(d) of the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; further notes that each of the supervisory bodies of those treaties have reiterated as recently as 2002, and in the case of the ILO as recently as June 2003, that the UK continues to breach them; accordingly calls on the Government to use the opportunity of the Review to introduce amending legislation to bring the United Kingdom's trade union laws into conformity with the international laws which the UK has ratified and by which it is bound; and further calls on the Government to introduce legislation analogous to the Human Rights Act 1998 to make those provisions of the treaties referred to above directly enforceable in the courts and tribunals of the United Kingdom.

This motion has been signed by a total of 46 MPs.