The bargaining unit


When making the formal application to the CAC, the union must identify the bargaining unit for which it seeks recognition. This is the group of workers on whose behalf it wants to bargain collectively. It is important to choose carefully, especially as the outcome of any eventual ballot (see page 141) can hang on who is, or is not, included in the unit. The CAC must examine whether a proposed bargaining unit, if contested, is “compatible with effective management” (Part V1, Schedule A1 section 19B(1), TULRCA). A union’s proposed bargaining unit can usually only be successfully challenged if the employer can show that it is incompatible with effective management. It need not be the most effective unit of organisation, as long as it is not an ineffective one. 


If the employer successfully challenges the union’s preferred bargaining unit, the CAC can impose a different one. At this stage the union may choose to withdraw the application. Once the CAC has decided on the bargaining unit, an employer will find it very difficult to overturn that decision. In Lidl Limited v CAC & Another [2017] IRLR 646, the Court of Appeal said courts must be “very cautious” to interfere with a CAC decision as to the appropriate bargaining unit, and that this kind of challenge should be “strongly discouraged”, as the CAC is the expert here.