[3]: 262 As part of the protests against the legislation, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) promoted a policy of non-compliance, resulting in an effective boycott of the NIRC.
The NIRC could also sit anywhere in Great Britain although cases were almost always held in the court's rooms on Chancery Lane, London or at its Scotland branch which was initially in Edinburgh and then in Glasgow from mid-1972.
[4]: 255 The court could order a secret ballot to be held in cases industrial action where there was risk of serious public disorder, where there was doubt as to the level of support for strikes, or where disputes were seen as a threat to the national economy, health or security.
This position was doubted by Lord Hoffmann in Johnson v Unisys Ltd [2003] 1 AC 518, but upheld in Dunnachie v Kingston-upon-Hull City Council [2004] UKHL 36.
Goad v Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (AUEW) [1972] ICR 429 was an unfair industrial practices case which was lodged with the NIRC on 11 September 1972, during the court's vacation.
[3]: 275 James Goad, a member of the AUEW, sought an order to force the union to allow him to attend branch meetings, affirming a ruling from an industrial tribunal.
[3]: 276 The Economist reported that if the AUEW had defended itself, it could probably have shown that the exclusion from branch meetings was not arbitrary but because Goad had failed to pay his union dues three times and because he had worked during a strike.
In July 1972, a dispute involving the dock workers union led to five shop stewards being imprisoned in Pentonville Prison for contempt of court.
The NIRC had previously ordered seven dockworkers to stop picketing the premises of Midland Cold Storage Company in Hackney, London.
[11] The Official Solicitor applied to the NIRC on the afternoon of 26 July for the Pentonville Five to be released, mainly on the grounds that the Law Lords overturned a Court of Appeal ruling that morning and had judged that trade unions were primarily responsible for the unlawful behaviour of their shop stewards.
[1]: 208 As such, Donaldson said that at the time he saw a custodial sentence as the only answer to the dilemma but that in hindsight he would have imposed a small fine and then imprisoned the workers if they had kept ignoring the court order.