Barbican action called off

Strike action has been cancelled at the RSC's London base.

BECTU has offered to continue talks with the Royal Shakespeare Company about the closure of its Barbican theatre centre. However, the company's London management are unwilling to resume negotiations immediately because, they claim, some individual members of staff are declining overtime.

The union has said that members are working normally, and that no instruction for disruptive action has been issued to them following a decision by officials to call off plans for a strike.

A ballot of BECTU's RSC members at the Barbican, which closed on November 9, produced a 93% majority in favour of industrial action against plans to close the theatre.

RSC managers then challenged whether the ballot questions had been correctly worded, in line with the UK's restrictive labour laws which require unions to ensure that strike ballots are run only in connection with "legitimate" industrial issues.

Any failure to meet this legal hurdle puts unions at risk of damages claims from employers who suffer financial loss as a result of industrial action.

BECTU's lawyers advised that the Barbican ballot could be open to legal challenge, leaving the union exposed to claims for compensation if the RSC lost any performances because of strikes.

The industrial dispute at the Barbican arose after the company announced that its activities at the theatre would be closed to allow future productions to play in London's West End.

BECTU declared a dispute earlier this year when management refused to offer employment guarantees to RSC staff at the theatre, most of whom face either redundancy, or an enforced transfer on to the books of the Barbican itself, owned by the Corporation of London.