The Fragmentation of Representation — ‘Contract-based Recognition’

Abstract

Chapter 6 concentrated on the law as a mechanism to regulate the workplace relationship; this chapter moves beyond this context to explore the way that the operation of the statutory procedure reflects and/or encourages changes in wider employment relations, notably the increased fragmentation of representation. It confirms that the procedure encourages both employers and unions to define bargaining units in their immediate interests, but highlights that their arguments can be inconsistent and in conflict with their longer-term and wider organisational strategies. In particular the difficulties that unions have in demonstrating majority support in multi-site bargaining units has had the effect of restricting recognition to small and medium-sized employers in single locations. The chapter goes on to propose that this trend, established in the early years of the procedure, has been reinforced by the changed economic and political context for unions. The early sectoral concentration of applications has shifted, with public service unions moving slowly into the arena of statutory recognition. Subsequent CAC data suggests an increasing number of recognition claims based upon bargaining units that had been removed from direct employment by larger organisations and where workers were subsequently employed on contracts outsourced to secondary organisations.

Contract-based recognition is not inherently incompatible with effective management of the employer’s business. (CAC decision on the bargaining unit in the case of Unite and Knightsbridge Guarding TUR1/624/2008)