The result of the recent recognition ballot at Boots was overwhelming, with pharmacists voting by more than 12:1 in favour of the union. This showed the strength of support for the PDA Uion, and the union are now reaching out to all Boots pharmacists, however, they voted, to make sure the union can do the best job for the entire profession at the company.
PDA Union have around 2,500 members at Boots, around 36% of employees, but the ballot shows they have the support of over 92% of employees who voted.
Paul Day, National Officer explained: “Trade union law requires that we needed a) to win a majority and b) have explicit support from at least 40% of those able to vote in order to be recognised, so that’s what we have achieved.
We significantly exceeded each of those thresholds with a) a majority of 92.4% vs. 7.6% and b) the explicit support of 47.5% of eligible participants. However, this situation isn’t just about winning ballots, it’s always been about how we can help pharmacists have a better working life.
We know that 266 people explicitly voted against our recognition, but we are now going to be negotiating their pay and representing their interests too, so we want to make sure they realise we want to hear their views about how things can be better at Boots, just as much as we want to hear from the 3,229 individual who voted for us and also those who chose not to vote.”
In any democratic process, it is those that vote who decide the outcome. Those who chose not to vote will accept the majority decision reached via the votes of their colleagues who did participate. This was also a secret ballot and neither Boots or the PDA Union will ever know which way an individual voted (or if they did not vote).
Similarly, only PDA Union and each individual will know whether or not someone is a PDA Union member. In fact, trade union membership is one of several special categories of data under General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) – previously classified as “sensitive personal data” under the Data Protection Act (DPA) – and as such, should not be asked about, or recorded by the employer, or anyone else.
Mr Day continued:
“We’d like all 7,000 of those in the bargaining unit to join the PDA Union, that way they can call on us for individual help if they need it, they can participate in our activity, such as our FREE events and even stand to be a trained representative for their work colleagues.
But trade union membership is a matter of individual choice and when we decide priorities and collate evidence for negotiations with the company we will listen to all Boots pharmacists, whether or not they are our members.
Anyone can already contact us via our website or through our social media and in our forthcoming talks with the company, we’ll also be asking them to agree further methods for communications to make it even easier for any Boots pharmacist to communicate with us.”
PDA Union’s network of representatives will listen to all pharmacists and trainee pharmacists at Boots and collectively the network will act on what they hear. PDA Union will deliver the best we can for the entire population we now represent.