The High Court refused Chieftain Construction Limited and Mayfair Construction Limited’s application for an interlocutory injunction against peaceful picketing at two construction sites in County Limerick. The court found that the companies’ argument about the scope of statutory protection for former workers was arguable but too weak to establish a fair issue for trial at this stage.
Mr Justice John Edwards delivered the judgment on 1 May 2008. The companies sought to restrain eleven former employees from picketing sites at Coolbawn, Castleconnell, and Gleantain, Castletroy. The workers had been made redundant on or about 20 December 2007, with notices citing “lack of work”. They disputed that there was a genuine redundancy situation and believed the companies wanted to replace them with lower-cost agency workers. Those were the workers’ stated position, not findings by the court.
The redundancy dispute had gone through the Labour Relations Commission without resolution and had been referred to the Labour Court. The judgment also noted that the workers remained within time to bring unfair dismissal claims before the Employment Appeals Tribunal if they chose.
The companies alleged that some workers had entered the Gleantain site on 22 and 24 April, pressured tradesmen to stop working and confronted plasterers. But by the hearing on 28 April, the companies accepted that the workers’ ongoing activities were confined to peaceful picketing at the entrances to both sites. The workers argued that the picketing was lawful under section 11(1) of the Industrial Relations Act 1990.
The companies’ central argument was that the section applied only where the picketers’ employer currently worked or carried on business at the location. They accepted that they had employed the workers until December 2007, but argued that former employees were outside the provision. The workers said the statutory wording covered them as former employees involved in a trade dispute.
The judge said he was not deciding the statutory interpretation question, which would be for the trial court. For the interlocutory application, however, he considered the companies’ prospects of success remote and their legal point weak. He was therefore not satisfied that the companies had shown a fair or serious issue to be tried. The injunction application was refused. The court did not determine the underlying employment dispute or make a final ruling on the meaning of section 11(1). It left costs for argument.