What is the minimum number of members required for registration of a Trade Union ?

Correct — C, (c) 7 members. Section 4(1) of the Trade Unions Act, 1926 says it in terms: 'Any seven or more members of a Trade Union may, by subscribing their names to the rules of the Trade Union and by otherwise complying with the provisions of this Act with respect to registration, apply for registration of the Trade Union under this Act.' Seven is the floor for making the application, and the Act protects that floor at both ends of the process. Section 4(2) provides that an application does not become invalid merely because, after it is made but before registration, some of the applicants — not exceeding half of the total number who applied — cease to be members or write to the Registrar dissociating themselves; the concession is bounded, so the application cannot be hollowed out. At the other end, the Trade Unions (Amendment) Act, 2001 added a relative test alongside the absolute one: a proviso to section 4(1) requires that at least ten per cent or one hundred of the workmen, whichever is less, engaged in the establishment or industry concerned be members on the date of the application, and the new section 9A 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. Seven therefore survives the 2001 tightening as the number below which a union of workmen can neither be registered nor stay registered.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)2 members — Two is the minimum for an agreement between parties, not for a combination the law will put on a public register. The Act defines a Trade Union in section 2(h) as a combination formed primarily for regulating relations between workmen and employers, or between workmen, or between employers, or for imposing restrictive conditions on the conduct of any trade or business — a body meant to speak for a workforce. Setting the bar at two would let a single pair of employees claim the immunities in Chapter III, which is what the seven-member rule is there to prevent.
• (b)3 members — Three corresponds to nothing in the Act. It has the feel of a quorum, and quorums are where small numbers like this usually live in company and society law, but the Trade Unions Act fixes its registration threshold by a single number in section 4(1) and that number is seven. When an option in a statutory-threshold item cannot be tied to any provision at all, it is filling a slot rather than testing a confusion.
• (d)10 members — The most tempting wrong answer, because ten does appear in this Act — as a PERCENTAGE, not a headcount. Since the 2001 amendment a union of workmen must have as members at least ten per cent or one hundred of the workmen, whichever is less, both to be registered under the proviso to section 4(1) and to stay registered under section 9A. Reading that ten per cent back as 'ten members' is exactly the slip the option is built on, and section 9A closes it by adding the words 'subject to a minimum of seven'.

The Trade Unions Act, 1926 makes registration voluntary but valuable: a registered trade union becomes a body corporate under section 13, and Chapter III gives it immunity from certain criminal conspiracy prosecutions under section 17 and from civil suit in respect of acts done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute under section 18. The price of admission is set in section 4. Seven or more members must subscribe their names to the union's rules and apply to the Registrar, and section 5 requires the application to carry a copy of the rules and particulars of the members making it, of the office-bearers, and of the union's name and head office. The Trade Unions (Amendment) Act, 2001 layered a second test on top of the first, so that registration now needs both an absolute minimum and a share of the workforce — ten per cent or one hundred workmen, whichever is less — and section 9A carries the same requirement forward for as long as the union stays on the register, subject always to that minimum of seven. The design is deliberate: the absolute number keeps the register free of one-person bodies, and the relative number keeps it free of unions with no real presence in the establishment they claim to represent.

Key facts

• Trade Unions Act, 1926, section 4(1): any seven or more members of a Trade Union may, by subscribing their names to its rules and otherwise complying with the Act, apply for registration.
• Section 4(2): the application does not become invalid merely because some applicants, not exceeding half of the total number who applied, later cease to be members or dissociate themselves in writing before registration.
• The proviso to section 4(1), added by the Trade Unions (Amendment) Act, 2001, requires at least ten per cent or one hundred of the workmen, whichever is less, engaged in the establishment or industry to be members on the date of the application.
• Section 9A, also added in 2001, 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.
• Section 2(h) defines a Trade Union as any combination, whether temporary or permanent, formed primarily for regulating the relations between workmen and employers, between workmen and workmen, or between employers and employers, or for imposing restrictive conditions on the conduct of any trade or business.
• Registration is optional, but section 13 makes a registered trade union a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal, and sections 17 and 18 give it immunity in criminal conspiracy and in civil suit for acts done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute.
• Section 5 lists what the application must contain, including the rules of the union and particulars of its members and office-bearers.

Common traps

• Reading the 2001 amendment's ten per cent as ten members. The percentage and the headcount are different tests that operate together.
• Assuming the seven-member rule was replaced in 2001. It was supplemented — section 9A expressly keeps a minimum of seven.
• Confusing registration with recognition. Registration under the 1926 Act confers corporate status and immunities; recognition as a bargaining agent is a separate matter.
• Thinking registration is compulsory. It is voluntary, which is itself a favourite EPFO question.
• Mixing this Act's numbers with the Industrial Disputes Act's thresholds of fifty, one hundred and three hundred workmen.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Trade Unions Act, 1926, registration of a trade union of workers is :

  • (a)Compulsory for every trade union
  • (b)Optional
  • (c)Compulsory only in public utility services
  • (d)Compulsory only where the establishment employs one hundred or more workmen

  Answer(b) Optional

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under section 9A of the Trade Unions Act, 1926, a registered trade union of workmen must at all times continue to have as members :

  • (a)Not less than fifty workmen of the establishment
  • (b)Not less than ten per cent or one hundred of the workmen, whichever is less, subject to a minimum of seven
  • (c)Not less than one-third of the workmen of the establishment
  • (d)Not less than one hundred workmen in every case

  Answer(b) Not less than ten per cent or one hundred of the workmen, whichever is less, subject to a minimum of seven