Recognition claims double
A total of 43 applications for trade union recognition were received by the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) in the year ending 21 March 2012. This is almost double the figure for the previous year, but is a return to the levels seen two years previously.
The CAC annual report 2011-12 notes that, while the average size of bargaining unit among these cases was the same as a year earlier, that is misleading as the latest year included applications from some very large units. Two thirds of the 2011-12 applications involved bargaining units of 100 workers or fewer.
There was a slight reduction in the dominance of applications from manufacturing, transport and communications sectors and an increase from residential care facilities and service contractor companies.
There were no new derecognition requests in the year, but an earlier one was concluded. A group of workers at Honda failed in their bid to have the Unite general union derecognised.