PART IIDEFINITION, STATUS AND GENERAL REGULATION OF TRADE UNIONS AND EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS

Definition and status

Definition and status of employers' association4

1

Subject to paragraph (2), in this Order “employers' association” means an organisation (whether permanent or temporary) which either—

a

consists wholly or mainly of employers or individual proprietors of one or more descriptions and is an organisation whose principal purposes include the regulation of relations between employers of that description or those descriptions and workers or trade unions; or

b

consists wholly or mainly of—

i

constituent or affiliated organisations which fulfil the conditions specified in sub-paragraph (a) (or themselves consist wholly or mainly of constituent or affiliated organisations which fulfil those conditions); or

ii

representatives of such constituent or affiliated organisations;

and in either case is an organisation whose principal purposes include the regulation of relations between employers and workers or between employers and trade unions, or include the regulation of relations between its constituent or affiliated organisations.

2

References in this Order to an employers' association include references to a combination of employers and employers' associations.

3

An employers' association may be either a body corporate or an unincorporated association.

4

Where an employers' association is unincorporated—

a

it shall be capable of making contracts;

b

all property belonging to the employers' association shall be vested in trustees in trust for the association;

c

it shall be capable of suing and being sued in its own name, whether in proceedings relating to property or founded on contract or tort or any other cause of action whatsoever;

d

proceedings for any offence alleged to have been committed by it or on its behalf may be brought against it in its own name; and

e

any judgment, order or award made in proceedings of any description brought against the employers' association shall be enforceable by way of enforcement order under the Judgments Enforcement (Northern Ireland) Order 1981F1, punishment for contempt or otherwise, against any property held in trust for the employers' association to the like extent and in the like manner as if the association were a body corporate.

Para.(5) rep. by 2003 NI 17

6

The purposes of an unincorporated employers' association and, in so far as they relate to the regulation of relations between employers and workers or trade unions, the purposes of an employers' association which is a body corporate, shall not, by reason only that they are in restraint of trade, be unlawful so as—

a

to make any member of the association liable to criminal proceedings for conspiracy or otherwise; or

b

to make any agreement or trust void or voidable;

nor shall any rule of an unincorporated employers' association or, in so far as it so relates, any rule of an employers' association which is a body corporate be unlawful or unenforceable by reason only that it is in restraint of trade.

7

Article 113 of the Judgments Enforcement (Northern Ireland) Order 1981 (sequestration order against company in contempt) shall apply to an unincorporated employers' association as it applies to a company.