Currently, our two major unions (the non-sectoral ones, lest the other unions get offended) are getting all hot and bothered about employers failing to decide which of them should represent the workforce as a whole.

  say "employers failing" because it is at them that the unions vying for recognition direct their ire, although truth be told, it's up to the Government, as the rule-maker and arbiter in the industrial relations game to see to this being sorted out.

Don't hold your breath: the PN Government had not grasped the nettle and reformed industrial relations, for various reasons, not least of which being the "over our dead body" attitude adopted by the people who matter, so don't expect the current bunch, who owe the General Workers' Union way more than the PN Government ever owed any union.

And there's more to the problem than that, to make things worse.  

The Minister responsible for industrial relations, by the manner in which she treated the Industrial Tribunal, demonstrated from Day One that she has a scant grasp of the way things are done properly and her manner of solving the incipient (at the time) problem of union recognition, by setting up an ad hoc Board that met with hoots of slightly-disguised derision from most players, didn't increase her profile profitably in this regard. 

Maybe she had planning issues to occupy her mind, who knows?

In fact, the issue of union recognition for collective bargaining purposes is both simple and complex, at the same time.  

Generally speaking, although the law hasn't been written down, it is the union that enjoys the support of the bare majority (50%+1) of the workforce in the categories it is seeking to represent that should be given the pat on the back.

This concept has, apparently, evolved into the matter of membership in, rather than support of, the union concerned being the relevant point, though this does not really chime with the law, which says explicitly that the conditions of employment established by a collective bargaining process are the conditions of employment of ALL the employees in the categories concerned, not just the union members.

The question is, how does one establish the relevant numbers?  

If we had kept on going down the "support enjoyed" route, a simple ballot at the work-place would have sufficed, but the unions, some say rightly, jibe at this, because their real interest is to represent their members, not the free-loaders who don't pay their dues and get the benefit nonetheless.

So we've ended up with someone having to establish the membership figures, a task which used to be done by the Registrar of Trade Unions but which has now hit a reef because the employees of the Department have joined the UHM, rendering them, I would say completely unfairly, untrustworthy from some points of view.

Where do we go from here?  

Stuffed if I know, given all of the above.  The Industrial Tribunal has tended to wash its hands, the Malta Employers' Association has directed its members not to co-operate with verification exercises that are not run by the Registrar and both the unions are flexing their muscles in court and out, while John Q. Citizen suffers the consequences.

For what it's worth, here's my two point three euro worth: go back to the simple ballot, putting the question to the workforce "which union do you wish to represent you (tick one box only)?"

The union that gets 50%+1 of the total number of employees wins: if no union hits the magic number, there's no collective recognition, the workforce appoint representatives (already catered for in the law) and they negotiate terms and conditions.

Anything's better than letting the Minister sort it out, anyway, given the evidence.