Which of the following disputes is/are considered as trade dispute(s) under the provision of the Trade Union Act, 1926 ? Any dispute of any person connected with 1. Employment 2. Non-Employment 3. Conditions of Labour Select the correct answer using the code given below :

Correct — C, (c) 1, 2 and 3. All three heads printed in the list sit inside a single sentence of the statute. Section 2(g) defines a trade dispute as 'any dispute between employers and workmen, or between workmen and workmen, or between employers and employers which is connected with the employment or non-employment, or the terms of employment or the conditions of labour, of any person', and adds that 'workmen' there means all persons employed in trade or industry whether or not in the employment of the employer with whom the trade dispute arises. Employment (statement 1), non-employment (statement 2) and conditions of labour (statement 3) are therefore each expressly named, and the definition carries a fourth head the question does not print at all — the terms of employment. That is why the answer takes every statement offered: the question asks whether each listed subject counts, not whether the list exhausts the section. Two features of the wording do the work. First, the tail 'of any person' means the dispute need not be about the people quarrelling — a union may raise a dispute about a workman who is not himself a party to it. Second, 'non-employment' is not the absence of a dispute but a category of one: refusal to employ, dismissal, discharge, retrenchment and a failure to reinstate all fall here, which is how the great majority of individual grievances enter the statutory vocabulary at all. The breadth matters beyond the definition clause, because the union's protections are keyed to it: section 17 shields office-bearers and members from prosecution for criminal conspiracy under section 120B(2) of the Indian Penal Code over agreements to further the objects listed in section 15, and section 18 bars civil suit against a registered trade union or its members for acts done 'in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute' on the ground only that they induce a breach of a contract of employment or interfere with another's trade or labour. A narrow reading of section 2(g) would shrink those immunities by the same measure. One printing note: the booklet's stem calls it the 'Trade Union Act, 1926'; the Act's short title is the Trade Unions Act, 1926, the word 'Indian' having been dropped from the original title by an amending Act of 1964.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)1 only — Keeps employment and throws away the two heads that carry most of the litigation. Section 2(g) does not stop at employment; it runs on through 'non-employment, or the terms of employment or the conditions of labour'. A dispute over the safety of a workplace, hours, ventilation or shift arrangements is a dispute about conditions of labour and is squarely a trade dispute, and a dispute over a dismissal is one about non-employment. Reading the definition down to its first word would leave a union able to raise nothing but a dispute about who is on the rolls.
• (b)2 and 3 only — Drops the very word the section opens its list with. 'Connected with the employment' is the first head in section 2(g), and it is the one under which questions of appointment, promotion, transfer, seniority and classification of workmen arise. There is no reading of the clause on which non-employment and conditions of labour count but employment does not — the three are joined in one series by the same 'connected with'.
• (d)1 and 3 only — The most tempting of the three, because 'non-employment' reads at first like a category that cannot generate a dispute — if nobody is employed, what is there to argue about? A great deal. Non-employment is the statutory home of dismissal, discharge, retrenchment, refusal of employment and refusal to reinstate, and the head exists precisely so that a workman who has been put out of the establishment does not lose the machinery that protects those still inside it. Striking statement 2 out would put the largest class of real disputes outside the definition, and would do the same to the immunity in section 18, which attaches to acts done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute.

The Trade Unions Act, 1926 turns on two definitions in section 2. Section 2(h) says what a trade union is — any combination, temporary or permanent, formed primarily for regulating 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. Section 2(g) says what a trade dispute is, and it is deliberately drawn wide: a dispute between employers and workmen, between workmen and workmen or between employers and employers, connected with the employment or non-employment, the terms of employment or the conditions of labour of any person. Four heads, three classes of party, and a tail that detaches the dispute from the identity of the disputants. The width is not decorative. Chapter III of the Act gives a registered trade union immunities that no ordinary association enjoys — section 17 against prosecution for criminal conspiracy in furthering the objects in section 15, section 18 against civil suit for acts done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute that induce a breach of a contract of employment or interfere with another's trade or labour, and section 19 saving certain agreements between members from being void merely as agreements in restraint of trade. Every one of those protections is triggered by the existence of a trade dispute, so how far section 2(g) reaches decides how far the immunities reach. The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 uses almost the same words in its section 2(k) definition of an 'industrial dispute'; there the definition switches on conciliation, reference and adjudication rather than immunity, which is why the two statutes can carry near-identical language to entirely different ends.

Key facts

• Section 2(g) of the Trade Unions Act, 1926: 'trade dispute' means any dispute between employers and workmen, or between workmen and workmen, or between employers and employers which is connected with the employment or non-employment, or the terms of employment or the conditions of labour, of any person.
• The same clause defines 'workmen' for this purpose as all persons employed in trade or industry, whether or not in the employment of the employer with whom the trade dispute arises.
• The four heads of the definition are employment, non-employment, terms of employment and conditions of labour — the printed question lists three of them and omits terms of employment.
• 'Non-employment' covers dismissal, discharge, retrenchment, refusal to employ and refusal to reinstate; it is a category of dispute, not the absence of one.
• Section 17 gives immunity from punishment for criminal conspiracy under section 120B(2) of the Indian Penal Code for agreements between members to further any object of the trade union listed in section 15, unless the agreement is to commit an offence.
• Section 18 bars a civil suit against a registered trade union, its office-bearers or members in respect of an act done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute, on the ground only that it induces a breach of a contract of employment or interferes with another's trade, business or employment.
• Section 2(k) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 defines an 'industrial dispute' in nearly identical words, but attaches conciliation and adjudication machinery to it rather than immunities.
• The Act's short title is the Trade Unions Act, 1926; it was enacted as the Indian Trade Unions Act, 1926 and the word 'Indian' was omitted by an amending Act of 1964.

Common traps

• Treating 'non-employment' as meaning that no dispute exists. It is the head under which dismissal and refusal to employ are litigated.
• Assuming a printed statement list must contain a planted error. Here the section names all three heads, so nothing is struck out.
• Believing the definition is confined to disputes between an employer and his own workmen — section 2(g) also covers disputes between workmen and workmen and between employers and employers, and reaches disputes about 'any person'.
• Mixing up section 2(g) of the Trade Unions Act with section 2(k) of the Industrial Disputes Act. The wording is close; the consequences are not.
• Forgetting the fourth head. 'Terms of employment' is in the section even though this question never prints it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under section 2(g) of the Trade Unions Act, 1926, which one of the following is not a head under which a trade dispute may arise ?

  • (a)Employment
  • (b)Non-employment
  • (c)Terms of employment
  • (d)Registration of the trade union

  Answer(d) Registration of the trade union

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The immunity from civil suit for acts done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute is given by which one of the following provisions of the Trade Unions Act, 1926 ?

  • (a)Section 13
  • (b)Section 15
  • (c)Section 17
  • (d)Section 18

  Answer(d) Section 18