EPFO APFC 2023 General Studies · Question 34 of 120

Correct — A, (a) optional. Nothing in the Trade Unions Act, 1926 obliges a combination of workers to register itself. Section 4 is permissive in its very grammar — any seven or more members of a trade union may, by subscribing their names to the rules and otherwise complying with the Act's requirements, apply for registration — and no provision anywhere in the statute makes an unregistered union unlawful or penalises a failure to register. Workers may combine, hold meetings, collect subscriptions and present demands without ever approaching a Registrar. What the Act does instead is offer an inducement: registration converts a voluntary association into a legal entity with defined privileges, and a union that declines it simply goes without them. The privileges are substantial. Under Section 13 a registered trade union becomes a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal, able to hold property and to sue and be sued in its own name. Under Section 17 its office-bearers and members are immune from prosecution for criminal conspiracy in respect of agreements made to further the objects of the union. Under Section 18 the union and its officers are protected from civil suit in respect of acts done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute that induce a breach of a contract of employment or interfere with trade or employment. Under Section 19 agreements between members are not void merely because they are in restraint of trade, and the Act allows a separate political fund on the terms laid down in Section 16. An unregistered union has none of this. Note also that although applying is optional, registering is not discretionary at the other end: Section 8 requires the Registrar to register a union that has complied with all the requirements of the Act, so a compliant applicant cannot be turned away.

• (b)compulsory — Compulsory registration would be a different statutory scheme altogether — it would require a duty to register, a time limit, a penalty for default and, in practice, a power to shut down an unregistered combination. The 1926 Act contains none of these. It was passed in the aftermath of the Madras High Court's action against the Madras Labour Union to remove the shadow of criminal conspiracy and civil liability from trade union activity, and its technique is to reward incorporation rather than to command it. This option also sits badly with the constitutional position: the right to form associations or unions is a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(c), and a general legal compulsion to register every workers' association would need a justification the Act never attempts to supply.
• (c)optional for workers working in non-public utility services — The Act draws no distinction between public utility services and other services for the purpose of registration, and no such classification appears anywhere in it. The phrase belongs to a different statute: 'public utility service' is defined in Section 2(n) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 and listed in its First Schedule, and its consequence is procedural — under Section 22 of that Act a person employed in a public utility service may not strike without giving notice within the prescribed period, and the employer may not lock out without the same notice. Importing that classification into the law of registration is a category error, and it is the specific confusion this option and the next are built to catch.
• (d)compulsory for workers working in public utility services — This is the mirror image of option (c) and fails for the same reason, with an additional twist: it would make registration compulsory exactly where the law imposes special restraint on strike action, which sounds administratively plausible and is entirely invented. Nothing in the Trade Unions Act, 1926 conditions registration on the nature of the industry, and nothing in the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 requires unions in public utility services to be registered. The pairing of options (c) and (d) is worth noticing as a design: when two options offer opposite versions of the same false distinction, the distinction itself is usually the fabrication, and the answer lies in one of the two unqualified options.

The Trade Unions Act, 1926 was passed to give lawful standing to workers' combinations that the ordinary law of conspiracy and of restraint of trade had treated as suspect, and it works by offering a package rather than by imposing a duty. Registration is voluntary at the union's end and mandatory at the Registrar's: seven or more members may apply under Section 4, subject since 2001 to the requirement that membership be at least ten per cent or one hundred of the workmen of the establishment, whichever is less, and Section 8 obliges the Registrar to register an applicant that has complied with all the Act's requirements. Registration then produces corporate personality under Section 13, immunity from criminal conspiracy under Section 17, immunity from certain civil suits under Section 18, protection of members' agreements from the restraint-of-trade objection under Section 19, and the ability to maintain a political fund under Section 16, in addition to the general fund. It also brings obligations: audited annual returns to the Registrar, rules covering the matters listed in Section 6, and the continuing membership requirement of Section 9A, breach of which can cost the union its certificate under Section 10. What registration does not bring is recognition as a bargaining agent. The 1926 Act contains no recognition machinery — an amending Act of 1947 that would have supplied one was never brought into force — so recognition has been governed by codes of discipline, by State legislation and, in the reformed framework, by the negotiating union provisions of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020.

The distinction between what a statute permits and what it commands is a standing theme in the labour block of this paper, and this item is its cleanest example. It is also the kind of question where a candidate's intuition works against him: provident fund coverage is compulsory, employees' insurance is compulsory, factory registration is compulsory, so a candidate moving through this block at speed carries an expectation of compulsion into a question where the answer is the opposite. The corrective is to remember why the 1926 Act exists. It was a decriminalising and enabling statute, not a regulatory one; its purpose was to make trade unionism safe, and a law with that purpose confers privileges on those who opt in rather than penalising those who stay out. Note also the printed form of the item — the stem is an incomplete sentence with no question mark, completed by each option — which is a shape this booklet uses in several places, and which rewards reading the stem together with each option in turn rather than reading the stem alone and then scanning.

• Registration under the Trade Unions Act, 1926 is voluntary: Section 4 says that seven or more members may apply, and no provision makes registration obligatory or penalises an unregistered union, which remains lawful but unprivileged.
• Registration is not, however, discretionary for the Registrar: Section 8 requires him to register a trade union that has complied with all the requirements of the Act in respect of registration, and Section 9 makes the certificate conclusive evidence of registration.
• The privileges of registration are corporate status with perpetual succession and a common seal under Section 13, immunity from prosecution for criminal conspiracy in furtherance of union objects under Section 17, immunity from certain civil suits over acts done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute under Section 18, protection of members' agreements from the restraint-of-trade objection under Section 19, and a separate political fund under Section 16.
• The concept of a public utility service belongs to the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 — defined in Section 2(n) and listed in the First Schedule — where it triggers the strike and lock-out notice requirements of Section 22; it has no bearing on registration under the Trade Unions Act.
• Registration is distinct from recognition as a bargaining agent: the 1926 Act provides no recognition machinery, an amending Act of 1947 on the subject was never brought into force, and recognition has instead rested on codes of discipline, State laws and the negotiating union provisions of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020.

• Carrying an expectation of compulsion from the provident fund and insurance statutes into the Trade Unions Act, which is an enabling law that rewards registration rather than commanding it
• Confusing the union's option to apply with the Registrar's duty to register — the first is voluntary, the second is mandatory once the requirements are met
• Importing 'public utility service' from the Industrial Disputes Act into a registration question; the classification governs strike and lock-out notice, not registration
• Equating registration with recognition as a bargaining agent, which the 1926 Act does not provide for at all

Questions on the Trade Unions Act divide between the applied membership-threshold type and the conceptual type seen here, which asks about the character of registration, the immunities that follow it, or the difference between registration and recognition. A recurring device in the conceptual questions is the pair of mirror-image options built on a distinction the Act never draws — optional for one class of workers, compulsory for another — and recognising that device is worth as much as recalling the section, because it points straight at the two unqualified options between which the real answer lies.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following consequences does not follow from the registration of a trade union under the Trade Unions Act, 1926?

  • (a)The union becomes a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal
  • (b)The union acquires immunity from prosecution for criminal conspiracy in respect of agreements to further its objects
  • (c)The union becomes the recognised bargaining agent of the workmen of the establishment
  • (d)Agreements between members are not void merely because they are in restraint of trade

  Answer(c) The union becomes the recognised bargaining agent of the workmen of the establishment — registration and recognition are different things, and the 1926 Act contains no recognition machinery at all, an amending Act of 1947 on the subject never having been brought into force. Corporate status under Section 13, immunity from criminal conspiracy under Section 17 and the protection of members' agreements under Section 19 all do follow from registration.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Trade Unions Act, 1926, where a trade union has complied with all the requirements of the Act in respect of registration, the Registrar

  • (a)may register it at his discretion
  • (b)shall register it
  • (c)shall refer the application to the appropriate Government
  • (d)shall register it only if no other union exists in the establishment

  Answer(b) shall register it — Section 8 obliges the Registrar to register a trade union that has complied with all the requirements of the Act in respect of registration, and Section 9 makes the certificate conclusive evidence that the union has been duly registered. So while applying is optional for the union, registering is not a matter of the Registrar's discretion, and the existence of other unions in the same establishment is no bar.