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What is secondary (or sympathy) industrial action and is it unlawful?

   Secondary action (or sympathy strikes as they are sometimes known)
   would occur if a trade union induces its members to take industrial
   action against their employer in support of fellow union members
   employed by a different employer where a trade dispute exists. For
   example, union members are in a dispute with their employer ("A") and
   in order to exert industrial pressure to settle the dispute the union
   calls upon its members employed by a different employer ("B") who is a
   supplier of services to A to refuse to handle supplies of those
   services to A.

   Secondary action is rendered unalwful in the UK by section 224 of the
   Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

   Recently, the RMT union asked the European Court of Human Rights to
   determine whether the UK's ban on trade unions to call for secondary
   action was consistent with Article 11 of the Convention (the freedom of
   assembly and association).

   In a judgment handed down in April 2014 the Court decided that although
   industrial action was protected by Article 11, including secondary
   action, it would be permissible for a government to ban secondary
   action if it could show that by doing so it was pursuing a legitimate
   aim and to be necessary in a democratic society to achieve those aims.

   The Court concluded that the UK did have a legitimate aim in protecting
   the rights and freedoms of parties who were not a party to the
   industrial dispute ("B" in the example above). As regards whether the
   ban on secondary action can be regarded as neccesary in a democratic
   society, the Court considered that in the UK had been able to show that
   in insituting the ban it was operating with the "wide margin of
   appreciation" afforded to governments, and that the ban was a
   proportionate means of protecting the rights and freedoms of those not
   directly involved in the trade dispute.

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