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14 Managerial L. 1 (1973)

handle is hein.journals/ijlm14 and id is 1 raw text is: HEATONS TRANSPORT (ST. HELENS) LTD. v. TRANSPORT AND GENERAL WORKERS' UNION CRADDOCK BROTHERS v. SAME PANALPINA SERVICES LTD. AND ANOTHER v. SAME AND OTHERS COURT OF APPEAL Lord Denning, M.R., Buckley L.J. and Roskill L.J. HEATONS TRANSPORT (ST. HELENS) LTD. v. TRANSPORT AND GENERAL WORKERS' UNION CRADDOCK BROTHERS v. SAME PANALPINA SERVICES LTD. AND ANOTHER v. SAME AND OTHERS June 13, 1972 Industrial Relations - Unregistered trade union - Unpaid shop stewards elected by fellow members with union authority to negotiate at local level with dock employers - Shop stewards initiating campaign of blacking container lorries after blacking by unregistered union knowingly inducing breaches of contract made unfair industrial practice by statute - Industrial Court orders to union to stop specified blacking - Union advice to shop stewards to obey court orders rejected - Court finding union in contempt and liable to fines and to compen- sate complainants for unfair industrial practices - Shop stewards agents, not servants of union - Whether evidence of implied authority from union to agents to black - Union not responsible for conduct of shop stewards acting outside scope of express or implied authority - Industrial Relations Act, 1971 (c.72) ss. 96(1), 101, 167(1) (9). From 1967 registered dockworkers in the ports within the national dock labour scheme who were members of the Transport and General Workers' Union Docks Group elected shop stewards to whom the union delegated specific functions set out in its rule book, including representing local members on matters affecting their employment, but no express authority to take industrial action, that being vested in the central executive bodies of the union. The shop stewards were not paid by the union but by the port employers. When the rapid development of stuffing and stripping goods in containers at depots outside the port areas, where wages were lower, led to a dramatic fall-off of jobs for registered dockworkers, the union supported the selective blacking of container vehicles at ports within the scheme, a practice on the part of the union which was lawful under the Trade Disputes Act, 1906; but when the Industrial Relations Act, 1971, came into force in February, 1972, and the union deregistered,