Consultation on Prohibiting Blacklisting of Trade Union Members

Section 3 of the Employment Relations Act 1999 contains a power enabling the Secretary of State to introduce regulations prohibiting the compilation or use of trade union blacklists (that is, a list which contains details of members of trade unions, or of trade union activists).

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has stated that, whilst it does not intend to introduce such Regulations now, it is consulting on the form of proposed Regulations so that they can be introduced swiftly should the need ever arise.

The draft Regulations render it unlawful to compile, sell, supply or use a blacklist which has been compiled with a view to it being used by employers to discriminate in relation to the recruitment or retention of workers.

The consultation ends on 22 May 2003, and is available as a PDF document from www.dti.gov.uk/er/black.pdf.
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