Royal Mail must draw up clear policies for postal workers refusing to deliver BNP election leaflets

The justification for this refusal is apparently a collective agreement between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union, which includes a 'conscience clause'. This states staff can refuse to deliver literature they find offensive. The Union has said members do not have to deliver material if they feel threatened or it is against their personal beliefs.

This clearly raises questions in relation to how deals with the management and practicalities of such an agreement and the issues that could arise as a result of this.

The first headache for those dealing with this is precisely what type of material will be deemed to be offensive or against an individual's personal beliefs. Potentially this could cover anything that relates to a political, religious or moral belief ranging from literature about contraceptives, or adverts for clothes that include fur, to the more obviously flammable material about immigration that the BNP literature referred to. This is a subjective question.

The key to dealing with this has to be the drafting of a clear policy and procedure in order to provide guidance where an employee wishes to use their right to refuse to deliver material they find offensive. The procedure needs to provide for how an employee should communicate their objection, who will determine if the objection is covered under the collective agreement, how that is to be determined and whether there is a right of appeal over any decision made. It would also need to cover who would have to deliver the offending material if the objection is upheld.

In some instances Royal Mail would have advance warning of a potential issue, where it knows it has agreed a contract to distribute material that could obviously offend the beliefs of some people. In these instances they could give employees prior warning of the impending delivery of material and there would be time to deal with any objections well in advance of delivery.

But a greater issue is likely to be where material is not so obviously offensive, or it is impossible to identify it in advance. In these cases swift action would have to be taken as they are likely to be faced with an employee who is refusing to deliver material due to be sent out that day. This is where it will benefit from clear guidance for employees and managers alike so that this issue can be dealt with as quickly as possible and alternative arrangements can be made to ensure that the material is delivered.

If there is not clear guidance on how to deal with this situation then it only increases the likelihood of problems occurring. There may be employees who are forced to just refuse to deliver the material and then find themselves subject to disciplinary action as a result of this and also grievances raised by other employees who object to taking on a colleague's workload.

There is no easy solution to managing this type of situation, however what is clear is that it is in the best interests of both the employer and employee if there are logical and workable policies and procedures in place in order to guide them both through the process of dealing with this issue once it arises.

Stephen Robinson is a partner at law firm Davies Arnold Cooper