T&G WINS RECOGNITION AND BALPA GETS BALLOT

Members of the T&G general union at Hozelock, the garden equipment manufacturers, have become the ninth group of workers to win recognition through the statutory legal process.

The T&G submitted a claim for recognition earlier this year which met all the eligibility and admission tests set by the government's recognition watchdog the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC). The CAC then ordered a ballot of all workers in the bargaining unit.

The ballot proved an overwhelming success for the union. Of the 266 workers in the bargaining unit, 201 voted and 92.5% of these backed recognition. This meant that 69.9% of all those who had been balloted were in favour of recognition and so the application for statutory recognition was granted.

The Central Arbitration Committee also recently ordered a ballot of airline workers employed by Easyjet. The low-cost airline has been resisting a recognition claim by the pilot's union BALPA but the CAC went ahead and granted the union request for a postal ballot rather than a workplace ballot. BALPA thought that the latter would be inappropriate given the nature of the pilots' jobs, which made contacting them at work difficult.