z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-04.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 219
ON THE INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES BILL 219
the workers as its members, and recognised by the employer. Secondly, a union whose membership is more than 50 per cent. can represent labour in the conciliation proceedings. These are, therefore, the two categories of unions which alone have the right to represent labour. Now, Sir, my honourable friend the Minister chooses to call them “representative unions”—both of them. I disagree with his terminology. I think a spade ought to be called a spade. Calling a spade a spade, what I submit is this : there are, no doubt, two kinds of representative unions under this Bill, but the important point to note is that one is a slave union and the other a free union. Sir, there is no exaggeration and there is no violence done to language if I say that a union which can have locus standi, a legal existence, a right to represent and a right to speak, only if it secures the prior approval of the employer is a slave union and not a union of freemen. I wish he had used the word “approval”; the word “recognised” is very inappropriate ; the proper definition should have been “a union approved by the employer”, as we would then have seen in plain term what we are asked to give our sanction to.
Now, Sir, what I do not understand—and my honourable friend will explain it to me—is why he has made registration under this Bill a condition precedent for a union to obtain a representative character. I find great difficulty in understanding these provisions in the Bill. Sir, the provision as it stands today is this. There is a Trade Unions Act passed by the Government of India in
- It is called the Trade Unions Act. The Bill does not repeal that Act ; in fact, that Act remains, and further this Bill insists that any union before it can be registered under the provisions of this Bill must be registered under that Act. That is clear from the definition of a union given in this Bill. I will presently tell the House why this has been done. I find that there is some design behind it. The position is, therefore, this : a union has to have twofold registration, registration under the Act of 1926 and registration, under the new Act. It seems to me that it would be better if I adverted to the advantages which registration under the Act of 1926 gives to a union which is registered under it, so that we may know what is it that this Bill gives in addition or whether there is anything which this Bill takes away. Applying my mind to the effect of registration of a union under the Act of 1926, these are the results that follow. The union becomes a corporation with a right to sue and to be sued. As a corporation it has certainly a right to represent its members ; otherwise, a corporate entity has no meaning. Secondly, as the House will realise, under the Government of India Act, 1935, a union registered under the Act of 1926 gets the right of political representation, that is to say, a union registered under the Act of 1926 can elect members to this House, and there are honourable members in this House who will bear testimony to that fact. Similarly, members of unions which are registered under the Act of 1926 have the right also to send representatives to the Bombay Municipal Corporation. Now, Sir, the question that arises is this.