Connex fails to prevent overtime ban

Connex, the south of England rail company, must be eligible for the title of employer most likely to go to the courts to stop industrial action. Just before Christmas it obtained an injunction against the train drivers' union ASLEF ordering it not to call upon its members to carry out an overtime ban. Despite an ASLEF statement to Connex's lawyers, that it "had not authorised any form of industrial action", the High Court issued the injunction and ordered the union to call off any strike action planned for over the New Year period.

This was Connex's third legal action against unions in the last year. In October 1999 it managed to stop industrial action by railworkers in the RMT, when they protested about railway safety. Industrial action against privatisation, planned for January 1999, was also prevented after Connex got an injunction against RMT.

The latest injunction, which expired at the beginning of last month, failed to prevent industrial action, since the drivers individually refused to work overtime as from 4 January 2000 (see page 2). Although it is relatively easy to get a court to issue an injunction against a union, it is much more difficult to use legal action against the workforce directly. This is particularly the case where overtime is concerned since, as with the Connex workers, overtime is rarely contractual and it is difficult to see how a court injunction could work against individual workers.