When an Individual Dispute becomes an Industrial Dispute with Case Study II StoryOfLaw II

The definition does not differentiate between individual dispute and Industrial Dispute. A dispute raised by a dismissed employee is considered individual dispute, unless their exist certain conditions converting the dispute into individual dispute.

An individual dispute becomes individual dispute when the following conditions exist :

1. They are must be dispute or difference.
2. Such dispute of difference must be between either, or (a) employers and employers, or (b) employers and workman, or (c) Workman and Workman.
3. The dispute or difference must be connected with either, or (a) the employment or non-employment, or (b) terms of employment, or (c) the conditions of labour of any person.
4. The dispute or difference must relate to an industry.
5. The dispute must be sponsored by the trade union of the workman or if there is not trade union it must be sponsored by the majority of the workman or it must comply with requirement of section 2-A.

Certain individual disputes of individual workmen are deemed to be industrial dispute under section 2-A of the Act which was inserted in 1965 in section 2 of the Act.

Section 2-A :-

Dismissal, etc of an individual workmen to be deemed to be an Industrial Disputes - where any employer discharges, dismisses, retrenches otherwise terminates the services of an individual workman any dispute or difference between that workman and his employer connected with, or arising out of, search discharge, dismissal retrenchment or termination shall be deemed to be an industrial dispute notwithstanding that no other workman nor any union of workmen is a party to the disputes.

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How many workman would be constitute a 'body' is a question to be decided in each case having regard to the circumstances and size of the establishment. The deciding factor is the percentage of the body of workman supporting the cause of individual workmen rather than the number of workman.

Case Study :-

• In Metro Golden (India) Ltd. v. Workmen, 3 out od 10 workers are considered as a body that can raise individual dispute; whereas in V.S.T. v. Workmen 104 workmen out of 2170 were not considered sufficient to do the same.
• In, Jagdish Narain Sharma and another v. Rajasthan Patrika Ltd. and another (1994), that a dispute relating to transfer of a workman will become an industrial dispute only when it is espoused by a union of workmen or by a substantial number of workman employed in an industry. Without search espousal the dispute cannot be treated as an industrial dispute and cannot be referred to a Labour Court.
• In workman of Indian Express Newspapers Ltd. v. Management of Indian Express Newspapers (AIR 1970) a dispute relating to two workmen of Indian Express Newspapers Ltd. was espoused by the Delhi Union of Journalists which was an outside union. About 25 per cent of the working journalists of the Indian Express were members of that union. But there was no union of the journalists of the Indian Express. It was held that the Delhi Union of journalists could be said to have a representative character qua the working journalists employed in Indian Express and the disputes was transformed into an Industrial Dispute.

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