Statutory recognition of a trade union as the negotiating union of workers in an industrial…

Under the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, where there is only one trade union of workers in an industrial establishment, the employer must recognise it as the sole negotiating union; where there is more than one, the union supported by fifty-one per cent or more of the workers on the muster roll is recognised as the sole negotiating union, failing which a negotiating council is constituted. Before the Code, neither the Trade Unions Act, 1926 (whose 1947 amendment chapter on recognition was never notified into force) nor the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 provided for compulsory recognition at the central level, and recognition was governed by the voluntary, non-statutory criteria annexed to the Code of Discipline (1958).