The demise of the 'voluntarist exclusion zone'?
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Brodie, Douglas (2025) The demise of the 'voluntarist exclusion zone'? Industrial Law Journal. ISSN 0305-9332 (https://doi.org/10.1093/indlaw/dwaf003)
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Abstract
The history of the legal enforcement of collective agreements in the UK is an intriguing one. Currently, s. 179 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 provides that such an agreement shall be conclusively presumed not to have been intended by the parties to be a legally enforceable contract; the parties may provide otherwise. S. 179 reenacted s. 18 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974 which reversed the presumption in favour of legal enforceability contained in the Industrial Relations Act 1971. The current statutory presumption may obscure a common law past which was notable for a paucity of case law and lack of certainty. In the circumstances arising in Ford Motor Co v AUEFW (Ford Motor) the view was taken that enforcement did not arise because of a lack of intention to create legal relations, a decision which aligned with (and contributed to) the voluntarist tradition in British industrial relations. Ford Motor was very much an exercise in legal fiction as the concept of intention to enter legal relations generally operates to deny domestic or social arrangements legal effect. Commercial contracts have always been regarded as legally enforceable in the absence of evidence to the contrary.
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Item type: Article ID code: 91878 Dates: DateEvent6 February 2025Published6 February 2025Published Online16 January 2025AcceptedSubjects: Law Department: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) Depositing user: Pure Administrator Date deposited: 24 Jan 2025 10:31 Last modified: 17 Feb 2025 09:53 URI: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/91878