Madras High Court upholds membership-verification process to decide which union bargains for MRF workers

Years of rivalry between trade unions at an MRF tyre factory in Arakkonam over which union should be recognised as the workers' collective-bargaining agent led the Tamil Nadu Commissioner of Labour to verify union membership under the tripartite Code of Discipline in Industry, by personally scrutinising each union's membership records and interrogating claimed members over a defined period, rather than by a ballot. One union, whose membership claim did not muster majority support in that exercise, challenged the verification process and separately challenged a settlement the management had reached with the successful union. A single judge dismissed its writ petition and allowed the management's petition upholding an industrial tribunal order in the management's favour.

On appeal, a Division Bench of the Madras High Court held that verification of membership through scrutiny of records, conducted with adequate safeguards against impersonation, remains the fairest available method of determining a representative union in the absence of a statutory ballot mechanism, and that such recognition exists only to identify which union may represent workers before the management and labour authorities, not as an absolute or permanent status. Finding the verification process fair and the industrial peace maintained through subsequent wage settlements, the Court dismissed the writ appeals and the writ petition, leaving intact the recognition of the rival union.