Akinosun (on behalf of General & Health Workers Union) v The Certification Officer

For certification as a trade union, an organisation’s principal purposes must in reality include the collective regulation of relations between workers and employers. A statement of objects or future assurances does not establish that present fact.

Representation of individual workers at internal employer hearings, without the requisite collective purpose, does not satisfy the definition. The applicant organisation bears the burden of showing that it presently meets the statutory definition. A certification decision cannot rest on what the organisation may become, and the later power of removal does not justify certification of an organisation which does not presently qualify.

The General and Healthcare Workers Union sought entry on the list of trade unions maintained by the Certification Officer under the Trade Union & Labour Relations Consolidation Act 1992. On 22 January 2013, the Certification Officer refused certification. He found that its principal purposes were to obtain rights of representation at employer hearings, and to further the commercial interests of a connected company, rather than to regulate collective relations between workers and employers.

The proposed union appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal on a question of law. It contended that the Certification Officer had drawn unjustified inferences and had failed to accept its proposed future arrangements as evidence of its qualifying purpose.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Certification Officer was entitled to find, as a matter of fact, that the proposed organisation was not a trade union within section 1 of the Trade Union & Labour Relations Consolidation Act 1992.

2. The statutory question concerned the organisation’s actual principal purposes. Those purposes were not conclusively determined by its draft rules, stated objects or assurances about future conduct. The applicant bore the burden of providing evidence that it presently met the definition.

3. Section 1 requires a collective purpose: regulation of relations between groups of workers and employers or employers’ associations. An organisation established merely to provide individual representation at internal employer hearings does not qualify on that basis alone.

4. The Certification Officer was also correct to assess the organisation as it existed at the date of the application. Section 3 uses the present tense. Certification could not be granted because the body might later develop a collective purpose, and the power of removal under section 4 did not alter that conclusion.

5. There was material supporting the factual conclusion. The proposed union had no established membership or demonstrated collective activity. Its directors, premises and equipment were closely connected with a company providing paid representation to workers. Future undertakings did not require the Certification Officer to find a present qualifying purpose. The decision was neither perverse nor affected by an irrelevant consideration or a failure to consider a required matter.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: dismissed the appeal from the Certification Officer’s refusal, dated 22 January 2013, to enter the proposed union on the list of trade unions under the Trade Union & Labour Relations Consolidation Act 1992.