Griffin v South West Water [1995] IRLR 15

Blackburne J

• Held that a privatised water company was a state emanation because it still carried out certain functions under the control of the state, which was important, because a directive on collective redundancy was only directly effective in the vertical sense.

• The company (Defendant) decided not to recognise Unison but instead to set up a staff council and consultative committee.

• Importantly, the case required an interpretation of national law on who the employees’ reps were, and in here s.188 TULRCA clearly meant that only recognised unions could be reps. A purposive approach couldn’t remove the work ‘recognised’ from the statute.