Part 6 of the Industrial Relations Act (the act) - Miscellaneous and General - which commences at Section 71, is the only provision in the act that expressly conveys and bestows specific rights to every worker in this country.
This section gives all workers rights with respect to trade-union membership, non-membership and related activities. It's simply his or her choice, and that's a legal right. These rights are consistent with sections 4 and 5 of our Constitution, relating to the general right of freedom of association.
Sections 72-76, however, establish the statutory mechanism for the creation of a workplace environment as an agency shop, by empowering the Registration, Recognition and Certification Board (RRCB) to make and issue agency shop orders.
Most people, including long-standing HR professionals as well as some seasoned IR practitioners, have very little working knowledge of what an agency shop order is and how it affects a business undertaking in general, and its workers in particular.
First of all, in TT an agency-shop environment can only exist where a recognised majority union (RMU) is certified for certain bargaining units in a business undertaking. Such an order made by the RRCB, therefore, can only be directed at specific bargaining units. An agency shop is therefore a place of employment where union members pay union dues, and other workers in the bargaining unit who are not members of the RMU pay a specified contribution, or service fees, to the union for the benefit of union representation, as well as to cover the cost of collective bargaining.
The legality of agency shops varies widely from country to country; therefore, agreements are generally highly regulated in developed countries, because in some European countries, a union and a company can enter into an agency shop agreement which allows the employer to hire both union and non-union workers without harming the trade union.
In the US, the Supreme Court upheld the legal permissibility of agency-shop service fees for non-union employees in the 1977 case of Abood v Detroit Board of Education. The court ruled that a government employer and the union may reach an agreement requiring employees to pay an agency service fee covering the costs of collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance representation. However, Abood clarified that objecting non-union employees had a legal right to withhold payment of any agency service fees that supported political and ideological causes.
In other words, objecting non-union employees could be compelled to pay only those expenses directly related to collective bargaining fees, and should not be used by unions to subsidise ideological or political causes or perspectives.
On the basis of Abood, all public employees had a constitutional right to prevent a union from spending part or all of their required agency service fees on political contributions or costs associated with the advancement of political views that were unrelated to the union's duties as the exclusive barga
