And back to court we go...
Our lawyers wrote to Unite yesterday evening to highlight potential flaws in the ballot process that led to seven days of strikes in March and the 20 days of strike action planned from next week.
The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 requires unions to send everyone eligible to vote details of the exact breakdown of the ballot result. This point of law was clarified in April following Network Rail’s successful application for an injunction to stop a strike by the RMT.
We do not believe Unite properly complied with this requirement. We wrote to the General Secretaries of the union yesterday asking them to explain to us how they discharged this obligation and, based on Unite’s replies, we believe that they failed to comply with the legal requirement.
On this basis we have applied to the High Court for an injunction to stop the 20 days of strikes planned from Tuesday.