2016: A Year Of Discontent?

2016 has been a turbulent year and it seems to be going out with a bang, in what some have dubbed a "winter of discontent". According to recent BBC analysis, in the first 10 months of the year 218,300 working days were lost to industrial action. We've seen a week of industrial action from rail workers and postal workers, and airlines are also anticipating disruption over the festive period. It's been reported that Weetabix employees have voted to strike in the new year, so it doesn't look things are going to slow down.

This is in a year where the Government amended trade union legislation to increase ballot thresholds, introduce new information and timing requirements in relation to industrial action, and impose legal requirements on unions for the supervision of picketing. However, the key provisions of the Trade Union Act 2016 have not come into force as yet and the Government has not set out any specific timetable for implementation.