Rights and Liabilities and Immunities of Registered Trade Union || Labour Law || Story Of Law ||

Rights and Liabilities and Immunities of  Registered Trade Union

Rights and Liabilities of Registered Trade Union

Section 15. (The Trade Unions Act, 1926). Objects on which general funds may be spent. - Section 15 of the Act is in the form of general restraint against expenditure of the general funds of a Trade  Union. The general funds of a registered Trade Union shall not be spent on any other objects than the following, namely :-

1. the payment of salaries, allowances and expenses to office bearers of the Trade Union;
2. the payment of expenses for the administration of the Trade Union including audit of the accounts of the general funds of the Trade Union;
3. the prosecution or defence of any legal proceedings to which the Trade Union or any member thereof is a party, when such prosecution or defence is undertaken for the purpose of security or protecting any rights of the Trade Union as such or any rights arising out of the relation of any member with his employer or with a person whom the member employs.
4. the conduct of the trade disputes on behalf of the Trade Union or any member thereof;
5. the compensation of members for loss arising out of trade disputes;
6. the allowances to members or their dependants on account of death, old age, sickness accidents or unemployment of such members;
7. the issue of, or the undertaking of liability under policies of assurance on the lives of members, or under policies insuring members against sickness, accident or unemployment;
8. the provision of educational, social or religious benifits for members (including the payment of the expenses or general or religious ceremonies for deceased members) or for the dependants or members;
9. the upkeep of a periodical published mainly for the purpose of discussing questions affecting employers or workmen as such;
10. the payment in furtherance of any of the object on which the general funds of the Trade Union may be spent, of contributions to any cause intended to benefit workmen in general, provided that the expenditure in respect of such contributions in any financial year shall not at any time during that year be in excess of one-fourth the combined total of the gross income which has upto that time accrued to the general funds of the Trade Union during that year and of the balance at the credit of those funds at the commencement of that year; and
11. subject to any conditions contained in the notification, any other object notified by the appropriate Government in the Official Gazette.

Thus it will be illegal to spend the Union funds for any purpose other than those stated above.

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Immunities of Registered Trade Union

Section 18. (The Trade Unions Act, 1926) - Immunity from civil suits in certain cases. - Section 18 of the Trade Unions Act deals with the Immunity from civil proceedings afforded to a registered Trade Union, and to its members of office bearers. a person is liable in Torts for deliberately bringing about a breach of contract of employment between the employer and the employee. But a registered Trade Union, it's members or office bearers are protected from being sued for including a person to break his contract of employment.

Section 18(1) of the a Act provides that no suit or other legal proceeding shall be maintainable in any Civil Court against any registered Trade Union or any office bearer or member thereof in respect of any act done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute to which a member of the Trade Union is a party on the ground only that such act induces some other person to break a contract of employment, or that it is an interference with the trade, business or employment of some other person or with the right of some other person to dispose of his capital or of his labour as he wills.

Section 18 (2) of the Act provides that a registered Trade Union shall not be liable in any suit or other legal proceeding in any Civil Court in respect of any tortuous act done in contemplation of furtherance of a trade dispute by an agent of the Trade Union if it is proved that such person acted without the knowledge of, of contrary to, express instructions given by the executive of the Trade Union.

It was held in P. mukundan and Others v. Mohan Kandy Pavithran (1992), that a strike, per se, would not be an actionable wrong. Further the office bearers, and the members of a registered Trade union are immune against legal proceedings linked with the strike of the workmen by the provisions of section 18 of the Trade Unions Act.

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Data Source :
• Labour and Industrial Laws - S.N. Misra