MANAGEMENT IN CONFIDENCE
suffer the automatic consequences which this entails. Wherever possible, a warning followed by a period for reflection should be given, eg any staff who refuse to work normally should be sent home with a warning that if on the next day they do not resume their normal duties they will be relieved from duty from that day and will not therefore be paid; pay will be resumed as soon as they return to work normally.
6.
The act of temporarily relieving a person from duty in such circumstances is not a disciplinary penalty (and this should be made clear to staff), so that the procedures outlined in Estacode Kb are not relevant. Managers should be aware that, for staff under suspension in this fashion, pay and pension records must automatically be noted, but (unless central instructions have been issued to the contrary) no special record should be kept on personal career files.
Laying-off of staff
7.
Staff willing to work cannot be laid off without pay when ther is no work for them by reason of industrial action by others.
Official facilities for staff association work
8. If industrial action is threatened, the principal argument in favour of allowing the use of official premises for staff association meetings in official time is that more moderate staff are likely to be better represented and this could lead to more balanced decisions. This argument applies only when the purpose of any meeting is to decide whether or not to initiate or support or suspend industrial action. (it would not, for example, be appropriate for management to condone meetings held specificially to register a protect or to plan disruptive measures). There are a number of arguments against allowing staff association meetings to be held on official premises in working hours to discuss strike action or irregular industrial action. There is no general right permitting staff associations to conduct association business in official time. If they are allowed to do so in order to consider their attitude to industrial action it is difficult to see how similar permission could be refused for other kinds of business. The undesirability of official sanction is increased by the fact that such meetings carry the risk of public criticism and, if the dispute is of any size, may well be reported by the media. Moreover, what may seem to be expedient in the particular circumstances of one department may not be acceptable in the different circumstances of other departments, and a general rule can hardly be based on selective application according to its advantage to management. The conclusion is therefore that the emphasis must be on withholding permission for use of official time and premises (including canteens); departmental discretion to place an unusually generous interpretation on normal practice may be exercised only if it will help to avoid severe disruption.
9.
Departments are unlikely to want to grant special leave or other facilities to staff representatives for association purposes during a period of industrial unrest when the obvious intention is to use the leave or the facilities to promote industrial action. However, industrial action may well cause problems which management itself needs to raise with association and staff side representatives (and not necessarily only those directly concerned in the dispute), with consequent demands on their time. It is reasonable for these staff representatives to expect that, where they are prepared to co-operate in the resolution of these problems, management in its turn should be prepared to allow them the necessary official time and facilities to be able to do so. In these circumstances, departments have discretion to grant such facilities.
FORMS OF INDUSTRIAL ACTION
Strikes
10. A civil servant who strikes is not entitled to receive pay, superannuation benefits, etc, for the duration of his unauthorised absence, as detailed in paragraphs 27-47 below.
Bans on overtime
11.
Estacode D b 1 states that staff may be required to work additional hours although every effort should be made to avoid overtime working. As far as possible it should be undertaken by volunteers but in some circumstances the may not be possible. Where regular (and particularly
MANAGEMENT IN CONFIDENCE