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Trade Union Bill
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EXPLANATORY AND FINANCIAL MEMORANDUM
The Bill places a duty on every trade union, with the ex- ception of certain trade union federations, to ensure that all voting members of the principal executive committee of the union are elected by secret ballot. It specifies the requirements which must be satisfied in relation to such elections and pro- vides a right of complaint to the courts for union members when a union fails to comply with Part I. It also provides that immunity from legal action will be removed from trade unions which call a strike (or other industrial action which puts those taking part in it in breach of their contracts of employ- ment) without first holding a secret ballot of the members con- cerned. Further provisions make the continued expenditure by a trade union in furtherance of political objects dependent on an affirmative ballot of the members of the union every ten years and amend the definition of political objects in section 3(3) of the Trade Union Act 1913.
Clause 1 places a duty on a trade union to ensure that every voting member of its principal executive committee owes his position on the executive at any given time to an election held within the previous five years and conducted in conformity with the requirements of Clause 2. The union is placed under a similar duty in relation to the holder of any position in the union which carries with it a vote on the principal executive committee.
Clause 2 provides that all the members of a trade union are to be entitled to vote in an election for a voting member of the principal executive committee unless they are members of certain specified groups. It also provides that unions may in their rules confine the electorate in elections of certain specified voting members of the principal executive committee to members in particular occupations, geographical areas or separate sections within the union. The clause provides that, so far as is reason- ably practicable, those voting are to be supplied with a voting paper and given a fair and convenient opportunity to vote in secret without direct cost to themselves; that voting in the election is to be by the marking of a voting paper and without interference or constraint; and that every member of the union is entitled not to be unreasonably excluded from standing as a candidate at the election unless he belongs to a class of mem- bers all of whom are excluded from candidature under the union's rules. The clause also makes provision in relation to overseas members.
[Bill 43]
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