CENTRAL ARBITRATION COMMITTEE
TRADE UNION AND LABOUR RELATIONS (CONSOLIDATION)
ACT 1992
SCHEDULE A1 - COLLECTIVE BARGAINING: RECOGNITION
DECISION ON WHETHER TO ACCEPT THE APPLICATION
The Parties:
Transport and General Workers’
(TGWU)
and
Comet Group Plc
Introduction
1. The Transport and General Workers’
Union (the Union) submitted an application dated 13 March 2006 to the CAC that
it should be recognised for collective bargaining purposes by Comet Group Plc
(the Employer) for a bargaining unit comprising “All Employees at Deeside
excluding Management. Bargaining Unit to
include Drivers, Drivers Mates, Warehouse, All Mobile Crew including
Installers, Engineers and all Administration and Office Staff.” The stated location of the bargaining unit
was “Unit 50. 3rd Avenue, Deeside Industrial Park, Deeside, CH5
2LA.” The application was received by
the CAC on 14 March 2006. The Employer
submitted a response dated 20 March 2006 which was received and copied to the
Union by the CAC on 21 March 2006.
2. In accordance with section 263 of the
Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (the Act), the CAC
Chairman established a Panel to deal with the case. The Panel consisted of Mr Chris Chapman,
Chairman of the Panel, and, as Members, Mr Dennis Cameron and Mr David Crowe. The Case Manager appointed to support the
Panel was Miss Sharmin Khan.
Issues
3. The Panel is required by paragraph 15
of Schedule A1 to the Act to decide whether the Union’s application to the CAC is
valid within the terms of paragraphs 5 to 9; is made in accordance with
paragraphs 11 or 12; is admissible within the terms of paragraphs 33 to 42 of
Schedule A1 to the Act; and therefore should be accepted.
Views of the
4. With its application the Union attached
a copy of the following correspondence: its initial letter to the Employer
dated 22 December 2005 in which it requested a meeting to discuss a voluntary
agreement, the Employer’s response to that letter, dated 23 January 2006 in
which it confirmed that it did not feel it would be beneficial to discuss the
matter at that time and finally the Union’s subsequent formal request to the
Employer for recognition, letter dated 17 February 2006.
5. The Union stated that there were
approximately 65 workers employed by the Employer and estimated that there were
58 workers in the proposed bargaining unit of whom 27 were members of the
Union. The Union explained the reason
for selecting the workers in the proposed bargaining unit was because: “There
are no existing local bargaining arrangements.
All these workers work under the same management structure and have the
same Disciplinary and Grievance procedure.
We seek one agreement for these workers where the employer already
treats them as substantially the same in regard to their terms and conditions.”
[sic]. The Union stated that the
proposed bargaining unit had not been agreed with the Employer. However, as evidence that the majority of
workers in the proposed bargaining unit were likely to support recognition for
collective bargaining, the Union stated that it had a petition signed by
employees in the bargaining unit who supported Union recognition at the
Employer’s Deeside side.
Views of the Employer
6. In its response to the Union’s application,
the Employer stated that it had originally received the Union’s written request
for recognition at its Hull site on 20 February and was not forwarded to the HR
Business Partner until the 10 March who received it on 11
March. In the meantime, the Employer had
received the CAC’s request for a response to the Union’s application but had
not received a copy of the Union’s application from the Union before then.
7. The Employer did not agree with the
Union’s estimate that there were 58 workers in the proposed bargaining unit and
confirmed that there were 60 workers in the proposed bargaining unit excluding
management. The Employer did not agree
with the Union’s claim of 27 members in the proposed bargaining unit. To the
knowledge of the current General Manager of its Deeside site, there had been 10
disciplinary hearings and 5 grievance hearings in the last year, of which only
4 had a union representative involved.
It believed therefore, that there were around 10 union members in the
proposed bargaining unit.
8. The Employer stated that it had no
sight of the petition referred to by the Union in its application pointing out
that with a claim of 27 members, the Union did not have 50% membership within
the proposed bargaining unit.
9. The Employer did not accept that the
majority of the workers in the proposed bargaining unit were likely to support
recognition and referred the Panel to its “Colleague Consultation Forum (CCF)”
which was an active and in its view an effective national body of elected representatives
who acted on the workers’ behalf for the purposes of information and
consultation. The CCF enabled workers to
raise their views with senior management and the Employer had not received any
complaints from the Deeside site about the CCF nor had it received any requests
from employees for it to recognise a trade union. For the Panel’s information, the Employer
submitted to the CAC on 29 March 2006 a copy of the relevant documents in
respect of the CCF which included amongst other things the Terms of Reference
for the CCF and the Role of the CCF representative. The Documentation received in respect of the
CCF expressly excluded collective bargaining and pay negotiations from the
scope of information and consultation.
10. The Employer did not agree the
proposed bargaining unit and briefly explained that the Deeside site was 1 of
12 Home Delivery Platforms (HDPs) in the UK and all HDPs were subject to the
same terms and conditions of employment.
In its view it would not benefit the organisation or its workers if they
were negotiated with separately. The
Employer sought to retain consistency across its HDPs. Furthermore the size of the proposed
bargaining unit was in relation to the total population of the 12 HDPS (776),
too small. However, at the acceptance
stage of the statutory process, the legislation requires the Panel to apply the
statutory tests to the bargaining unit proposed by the Union. Therefore this aspect of the Employer’s case
was not considered by the Panel for the purposes of this decision.
Membership and Support Check
11. To assist in the determination of the
admissibility criteria specified by Paragraph 36 (1) of the Schedule, the Panel
requested that an independent check of union membership in the proposed bargaining
unit and of the number of workers in the unit who had signed a petition
supporting recognition should be conducted by the Case Manager.
12. Both the Union’s list of its members
in the proposed bargaining unit and the Employer’s list of workers in the
proposed bargaining unit were provided on 29 March 2006. It was agreed that to preserve
confidentiality the information provided by the Parties would not be copied to
the other Party. The arrangements for
the membership and support check were confirmed in a letter to both Parties on
28 March 2006. The Panel extended the 10
day acceptance period to 5 April 2006 to allow time for the membership and
support check report to be produced and circulated to the Parties for their
comments.
13. The Employer provided a list of 59
names. The Union provided a list of 23 names of members. The Case Manager carried out a comparison of
the lists and the results of the membership check were produced as a numerical
report. The membership check established
that 19 workers in the proposed bargaining unit were Union members, resulting
in a membership level of 32.20%. The
support check established that 30 of the signatures on the petition were in the
proposed bargaining unit (50.85%), 15 of those signatures were from members of
the Union (25.42%) and 15 of those signatures were from non-union members
(25.42%).
14. The Membership Check Report
was circulated to the Parties for their comments on 31 March 2006. Both the Employer on the 3 April 2006 (by
e-mail) and the Union on 4 April 2006 (by telephone) confirmed to the Case
Manager that they did not wish to comment on the report.
Considerations
15. In deciding whether to accept the
application the Panel must decide whether the admissibility and validity provisions
referred to in paragraph 3 of this decision are satisfied. The Panel has considered all the evidence
submitted by the Parties in reaching its decision. The Panel is satisfied that the Union made a
valid request to the employer within the terms specified in paragraphs 5 to 9
of the Schedule as the Union provided a copy of the request made to the
Employer on 17 February 2006 to recognise it for collective bargaining in
respect of the proposed bargaining unit described in paragraph 1 of this decision. The request was made in writing and
identified the Union, the proposed bargaining unit and stated that the request
was made under the Schedule. The Panel
is also satisfied that the application is not rendered inadmissible by any of
the provisions in paragraphs 33 to 35 and 37 to 42 and is in accordance with
paragraph 11(2) of the Schedule.
16. The remaining issue for the Panel to
address then is whether the admissibility criteria of paragraph 36(1) of the
Schedule are met.
17. In accordance with paragraph 36(1)(a) of
the schedule the Panel must determine whether members of the Union constitute
at least 10 % of the workers in the Union’s proposed bargaining unit. The Panel finds that in considering the evidence
submitted by the Parties and the results of the membership and support check,
the first criterion in paragraph 36(1)(a) is satisfied as the figures show that
32.20% of the proposed bargaining unit are members of the Union. Accordingly the Panel is satisfied that the
10% test is met.
18. According to paragraph 36(1)(b) of the
Schedule, the Panel must assess whether a majority of the workers in the
19. The Panel is satisfied that membership
of a union, can be accepted as being indicative of that person’s support for
collective bargaining on his or her behalf by the union in relation to the
employer and, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it is more likely
than not that a worker who has joined a union would be in favour of that union
negotiating with the Employer on matters related to terms and conditions of
employment. Though the Panel is aware that
for the purposes of deciding on the admissibility of the application the Union
is not required at this stage of the application process to achieve majority
membership within the proposed bargaining unit, the Panel notes that in this
case, the results of the membership check established that 32.20% of the
workers in the proposed bargaining unit are members of the Union. The
20. In consideration of the above the Panel
is satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to show that the majority of
workers constituting the proposed bargaining unit would be likely to favour
recognition of the
Decision
21. The Panel is satisfied that the
application is valid within the terms of paragraphs 5 to 9, is made in
accordance to with paragraph 11 and is admissible within the terms of
paragraphs 33 to 42 of schedule A1. The
application is therefore accepted by the CAC.
Panel
Mr
Christopher Chapman (Chairman)
Mr Dennis
Cameron
Mr David
Crowe