Recognising and derecognising a trade union

Workers may use the statutory procedure to seek to derecognise a non-independent trade union that their employer has voluntarily recognised.

The reason for derecognition must be that the majority of workers in the bargaining unit do not support the recognition arrangements.

In this case, a worker - or workers - from the bargaining unit can apply to the Industrial Court for derecognition.

The Industrial Court will only accept the application if it believes that:

• the union is not independent - ie it does not have a certificate of independence from the Certification Officer
• at least 10% of the workers in the bargaining unit favour derecognition
• a majority of the workers in the bargaining unit are likely to favour derecognition

If the Industrial Court accepts the application, it will try to help the employer, worker(s) and union to reach an agreement on derecognition.

If an agreement is not reached, the Industrial Court will arrange a secret ballot - see statutory derecognition of a trade union - derecognition ballots.