The Central Arbitration Committee has seen a steady stream of applications for trade union recognition according to its latest annual report (external website).
In the year ending 31 March 2008, it received 64 applications for trade union recognition, unchanged on the number received the previous year. The majority of applications came from the manufacturing, transport and communication sectors. Just over half (53%) of these were for bargaining groups of less than 200 employees.
The CAC's remit expanded with the introduction of the Information and Consultation Regulations (subscription required). Its work in this area over the past year included seven new complaints under the Regulations and four carried over from the previous year.
The Regulations were extended to employers with 50 or more employees from 6 April 2008, which may well have an impact on the workload of the CAC over the coming year. Chairman of the CAC, Michael Burton, warns employers that "if employees make a request for information and consultation arrangements, it is imprudent, and can be costly, for an employer to ignore it".
The CAC reports that it scored highly among customer reviews, exceeding its targets for customer satisfaction as well as those for response times.
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