In a judgment handed down on September 12, 2014, the long running dispute between the Pharmacists’ Defence Association union (PDAU) and the Boots pharmacy retailer has been settled in Boots’ favour. The effect is that the union the company favours, namely, the Boots Pharmacists’ Association (BPA), has been deemed in law to have an existing collective bargaining agreement with the company and this nullifies the decision by the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) to accept the application for statutory union recognition by the PDAU at Boots pharmacies. Boots pharmacy has won in a case where the judge ruled that the overall thrust of British regulations on union recognition is not incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (article 11 on union association). In other words, the rule which prevents a union, other than the union already legally recognized, from requesting legal recognition is not to be overturned. This is the case even if the incumbent union is not exercising its full union prerogatives.
If the application for union recognition had been correct, the PDAU would have had to have met a number of thresholds concerning membership and employee support in order to be granted union recognition. Although the PDAU can appeal against the judgement of 12 September 2014, this is thought to be now unlikely so that the judgement will stand.
Boots applied for a judicial review of the CAC’s decision to accept the PDAU application for recognition was heard on 23 October 2013. In a long judgement
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