Strikes, Ballots, Law, and Democracy

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the nature and purposes of strike action. It suggests that strikes are a means of protecting and promoting the social and economic interests of workers—especially in the context of collective bargaining. It provides an historical outline of the relationship between strikes and the law by tracing the transition from repression of union organization, and more specifically the capacity to take strike action, through toleration to recognition, and recently back to reluctant toleration. The chapter also notes that the capacity to take strike action is almost always limited in one or more ways, including restrictions on the organizations and/or individuals that can lawfully take strike action, the forms of strike action that can legitimately be taken, the matters in relation to which strike action may be taken, and the procedural requirements for lawful strike action. A very common procedural constraint is a requirement that proposed strike action be authorized by a pre-strike ballot. Chapter 1 introduces the usual ostensible rationale for pre-strike ballots—the need to protect the democratic rights of individuals: the so-called ‘democratic imperative’. It also uses two case studies to introduce important theoretical and practical issues raised by the use of pre-strike ballots.