Most public bodies – including the Bank of England, the Treasury and the Pensions Regulator – recognise a trade union as representing their employees. The FCA does not.
The Unite branch at the FCA is currently conducting two campaigns. The first is to resist Exco’s ongoing attempts to cut our pay, limit our careers and subject us to an unfair appraisal system. The second is to obtain recognition of Unite by the FCA. This post relates to the campaign for recognition.
What is “recognition”?
Where a union is recognised in this way, it has a formal relationship with management, within the framework of a “collective agreement”. It negotiates with management on employees’ pay and conditions.
In such a situation, employees are not forced to become union members (a so-called “closed shop”). They can opt not to join the union if they so wish. If they make this choice, they will not have the right to vote on the union’s actions or to elect its officers (they will also not have the right to be supported by union representatives in disciplinary and grievance hearings).
The current situation
The FCA does not recognise any trade union. Instead, it interacts with its employees through the Staff Consultative Committee (SCC). The SCC works hard and tries its best to represent FCA staff. But it is not a trade union. It is not independent of management, it does not have the right to negotiate on pay and conditions, and it cannot call on staff to take industrial action.
Nikhil Rathi has stated that he is not opposed in principle to recognising a union, but in practice he has refused to do this. He has stated that he is concerned that FCA staff do not want to be represented by a union. That concern could be dealt with easily by holding a vote of staff and seeing what the result is. But this has not been done. We can only speculate as to why not.
Statutory recognition
In cases where an employer refuses to recognise a trade union, there is a statutory process which the union can follow to force the employer to recognise it. This procedure is difficult and is not often used. Regrettably, the FCA has forced Unite into using the process.
In order to use the process, the union branch must have an existing membership of 10% of the workforce. Unite at the FCA easily clears this hurdle. We also have to make the case that most employees want recognition, and our principal evidence for this is the online petition for recognition that we conducted (you may remember this petition if you signed it).
The process requires us to apply to a public body called the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC). We will ask the CAC to consider our evidence and to order a vote of FCA staff to be held. If the numbers of employees voting “Yes” clears the levels set out in the legislation – that is, 50% of the employees who cast a vote, and 40% of all employees entitled to vote – then the FCA will be required to recognise us. The vote would include all employees below the level of HoD. It would not include third-party contractors.
Recognition and industrial action
A union does not require recognition in order to take industrial action. The two things are entirely separate.
