EPFO APFC 2023 General Studies · Question 33 of 120

Correct — B, (b) Unions A, B, C and D only. The rule is the first proviso to Section 4(1) of the Trade Unions Act, 1926, inserted by the amending Act of 2001: no trade union of workmen shall be registered unless at least ten per cent or one hundred of the workmen, whichever is less, engaged or employed in the establishment or industry with which it is connected are members of the union on the date of the application. A second proviso adds an absolute floor of seven members who are workmen of that establishment or industry. The calculation therefore has two steps and the first is the one candidates skip. Take ten per cent of the 1,100 workmen employed, which is 110. Compare it with the fixed figure of one hundred. The proviso says whichever is less, so the operative requirement is 100, not 110. Now apply it: Union A has exactly 100 members and qualifies, because the statute says 'at least' one hundred and one hundred is at least one hundred; Union B with 370, Union C with 110 and Union D with 275 all clear the bar comfortably; Union E with 80 does not, and no amount of compliance with the seven-member floor saves it, since the two provisos are cumulative. Four unions qualify and one does not, which is option (b). The design of the question deserves attention: the membership figures are not random. One union sits exactly on the statutory number, one sits exactly on the ten per cent figure that you must not use, and one sits below both. Each of those placements corresponds to a specific misreading, and the option set contains the result of each.

• (a)All the unions — 'All the unions' is the answer under the law as it stood before 2001, when Section 4(1) required only that any seven or more members of a trade union subscribe their names to its rules and comply with the registration requirements. Every union in this question satisfies that seven-member test, including Union E with 80 members. The amending Act of 2001 added the ten-per-cent-or-one-hundred proviso precisely to stop the proliferation of tiny unions, each claiming to speak for the workforce, and it also inserted Section 9A so that a registered union must continue to meet the same test at all times, not merely on the day it applies. Answering from the pre-amendment text is the commonest way to get this item wrong.
• (c)Unions B, C and D only — This option drops Union A, which has exactly 100 members, and it is the trap for a candidate who does the calculation correctly and then misreads the threshold as one the union must exceed. The proviso uses the words 'at least ten per cent or one hundred of the workmen, whichever is less', and 'at least' includes the boundary, so a union standing exactly on the number is inside the rule and not outside it. Boundary handling is worth practising deliberately, because examiners in this block plant figures on the line: nothing in this question is accidental about Union A's total being exactly the statutory minimum.
• (d)Unions B and D only — This leaves only Unions B and D, which is what you get by using ten per cent of the workforce — 110 — as the requirement instead of the lesser of the two figures, and then applying that bar strictly so that Union C, whose membership is exactly 110, also falls. Two separate errors are needed to reach it, and the first is the important one: the proviso does not simply prescribe ten per cent, it prescribes ten per cent or one hundred, whichever is less, which means that in any establishment with more than a thousand workmen the operative number is always the flat one hundred. Reading the phrase 'whichever is less' as though it were 'whichever is greater' inverts the whole purpose of the provision, which was to set a threshold small unions could actually meet in large establishments.

The Trade Unions Act, 1926 gives a workers' combination legal personality and legal protection, and registration is the gateway to both. Section 4 governs who may apply: any seven or more members may subscribe their names to the rules and apply, subject since 2001 to the requirement that the union's membership be at least ten per cent or one hundred of the workmen of the establishment or industry, whichever is less, with an absolute minimum of seven workmen members. Section 5 prescribes the application, Section 6 the matters the union's rules must provide for, Section 7 the Registrar's power to call for further particulars, Section 8 registration and Section 9 the certificate, which is conclusive evidence of registration. Section 9A, also inserted in 2001, converts the entry requirement into a continuing one: a registered union must at all times keep membership at ten per cent or one hundred of the workmen, whichever is less, subject to a minimum of seven. Section 10 allows the Registrar to withdraw or cancel a certificate, including where the union ceases to satisfy Section 9A, and Section 11 provides an appeal. What registration buys is set out later in the Act: a registered union is a body corporate under Section 13, enjoys immunity from criminal conspiracy in trade disputes under Section 17 and from certain civil suits under Section 18, may maintain a general fund and a separate political fund, and may include a limited proportion of outsiders among its office-bearers under Section 22.

This is one of the two applied items in the labour block — the paper gives you facts and asks you to work the rule rather than recall it — and applied items are where the marks separate candidates who have read the section from candidates who have read about it. The technique that answers it generalises. First, extract the rule as a sequence of tests rather than as a sentence: compute ten per cent, compare with one hundred, take the lesser, then check each union against the result and against the seven-member floor. Second, watch the boundaries: a figure that sits exactly on a threshold is included where the statute says 'at least' and excluded where it says 'more than'. Third, expect the option set to contain the output of each plausible misreading, so that arriving at any of the four options feels like success; the only defence is to do the calculation before looking at the options at all. The same three habits answer the wage-computation item earlier in this block and the numerical items in the quantitative block that follows.

• The first proviso to Section 4(1) of the Trade Unions Act, 1926, inserted by the amendment of 2001, requires that at least ten per cent or one hundred of the workmen of the establishment or industry, whichever is less, be members of the union on the date of application for registration.
• The second proviso to Section 4(1) requires a minimum of seven members who are workmen engaged or employed in the establishment or industry concerned; the two provisos are cumulative, so meeting the seven-member floor alone is not enough.
• Because the requirement is the lesser of ten per cent and one hundred, the flat figure of one hundred governs in every establishment employing more than one thousand workmen — in a workforce of 1,100, ten per cent is 110 but the operative threshold is 100.
• Section 9A, also inserted in 2001, makes the same test a continuing obligation: a registered union must at all times have not less than ten per cent or one hundred of the workmen, whichever is less, subject to a minimum of seven, and failure attracts cancellation of registration under Section 10.
• Registration confers substantial advantages — corporate status under Section 13, immunity from prosecution for criminal conspiracy in furtherance of a trade dispute under Section 17, immunity from certain civil suits under Section 18, and the right to maintain a separate political fund — and Section 22 limits the proportion of office-bearers who may be outsiders.

• Reading 'whichever is less' as 'whichever is greater'; in a workforce above one thousand the flat figure of one hundred always governs, and using ten per cent instead produces a wrong shortlist
• Mishandling the boundary: the proviso says at least one hundred, so a union with exactly one hundred members qualifies, and this question plants a union on that exact figure
• Applying the pre-2001 rule that any seven or more members may register, which makes every union in a question of this type eligible and is the source of the 'all the unions' option
• Forgetting that the requirement continues after registration under Section 9A, so that a union which falls below the threshold later can have its certificate cancelled under Section 10

The Trade Unions Act reaches this paper in two forms: an applied item like this one, which supplies membership figures and a workforce and asks which unions qualify, and a direct item on the character of registration, the immunities that flow from it or the office-bearer rules. The numbers in play are few — seven, ten per cent, one hundred — so the whole family is answerable from one proviso and one section, provided you can apply them rather than only quote them. Practise by varying the workforce: below one thousand, ten per cent is the operative figure; above it, the flat hundred is.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A trade union applies for registration in an establishment employing 600 workmen. What is the minimum membership it must have on the date of the application under the Trade Unions Act, 1926?

  • (a)7
  • (b)60
  • (c)100
  • (d)300

  Answer(b) 60 — the first proviso to Section 4(1) requires at least ten per cent or one hundred of the workmen, whichever is less, and in a workforce of 600 ten per cent is 60, which is less than one hundred, so 60 is the operative requirement. The figure of seven is the separate absolute floor of workmen members under the second proviso, and one hundred governs only where ten per cent of the workforce would exceed it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which provision of the Trade Unions Act, 1926 requires a registered trade union to maintain the prescribed level of membership at all times, and not merely on the date of application?

  • (a)Section 4
  • (b)Section 9A
  • (c)Section 13
  • (d)Section 22

  Answer(b) Section 9A — inserted by the amendment of 2001, it requires a registered trade union of workmen to continue at all times to have not less than ten per cent or one hundred of the workmen, whichever is less, subject to a minimum of seven, as its members, and failure to do so is a ground on which the Registrar may cancel the certificate under Section 10. Section 4 governs the application itself, Section 13 confers corporate status and Section 22 limits outsiders among office-bearers.