Start Your Own Union
One person can buy legal insurance from the
sources below.
By the way this page repeats itself a bit and is a bit of a jumble
- please just scroll down if it repeats itself.
Legal insurance is not to be much more help than the Government's
free ACAS helpline until you have been unfairly dismissed (which
is why it's cheap) but it's better than nothing and can be combined
with membership of other unions. Given the track record of TUC unions, any member should also
have legal insurance and any shop steward should encourage all
colleagues to insure. As an ordinary employee, it might help
just to mention to your boss by accident that you have legal
insurance. This could save her taking risks later. "Insurance
- very interesting..." you could begin. Well I don't know
how you could drop it into the conversation.
Two people can remind each other to buy legal insurance and
offer to act witness in disciplinary meetings.
Insurance is not the most exciting thing in the world. Potted
basil is more exciting, particularly when on special offer. You
may have another favourite. That's why one of the most important
things trades unions should do is remind each other to stay insured.
It's also much easier to say you will act informal rep to someone
who has formal professional backup and a helpline to ring. This
saves any commitment to get over-involved with someone who -
- you don't have much in common with, or is asking for help
at a bad time
- deserves the sack for something else and maybe even what
she is getting the sack for
- requires complex thought, skills & knowledge all for
free while you are paid less than lawyers for a busy day job
- need help and have your home number
- while this is making you a target for workplace vicimisation
As someone who's job used to be voluntary sector social work,
I guess union rep work is quite similar in that you don't want
to start what you can't end, and that's why reminding people
to keep insured is vital. Like pensions, legal insurance tends
to get bought as a kind of default option because everyone else
does it, rather than because someone thinks "Today I'll
buy insurance". The first piece of formality in a union
should be to say that nobody is welcome to discuss it or ask
for help until they have an insurance document with them, just
as some of the T&G membership cards say "carry this
card with you at all times".
Three people can rotate the job of being rep, as happens in
small US unions, or at least tell the manager they've done so
to reduce victimisation.
Four people can ask one to ring-round insurance brokers and
ask for a discount if some buy together. At this stage they might
even write something down what's done. Small charities used to
have to keep minute books with numbered pages by law. The modern
equivalent is a private
yahoo group or this
one - both of which include bulk email systems and voting
systems. Some of the dispersed office software that Google and
others offer is an alternative. And advantage to a remote office
is that it doesn't have the bad name - Group - which suggests
a substitute for meeting when meeting is needed and distance
when preferred. It also has a decent shared word processor so
that a rep can comment on another members' grievance letter.
Email groups are worse than real meetings because less emotion
and friendly flirtation can be put-in to the comunication. They
also allow the employer's site, hacking-in somehow, to note troublemakers.
So for both reasons yahoo groups are not anything to do with
a group and everything to do with the dull detail of approved
minutes, accounts of anything paid for jointly, proof of legal
insurance and such.
Another thing they are good for is to keep in contact with
someone has got the sack or is off sick or on maternity leave
and doesn't want to use the boss's phone and email any more than
you want to give your home number and email. (My first T&G
rep insisted that I used the company email. I saw transcripts
in the other side's bundle. I don't know if the employer could
afford to monitor phone calls, but Class Telecom the provider
assured me that it was easy to do: "we can do that",
they said: "it's all stored on a server in Manchester").
Five people might even start calling themselves a union, pay
£150 to register at the Certification Office, get let-off
insurance premium tax by their broker, and even set-up a union
web site. The Twenty
First Aircrew Union of mainly British Midlands pilots buys
legal insurance in just this way, rather than bother with the
usual pilots unions or rely on their employer to provide a benefits
package. In the language of airlines, it calls itself a "no
frills virtual union". Even at this point, there's probably
no pressure to leave an existing union: this can simply be a
backup and a large one might provide a decent official who can
be persuaded to use any recognition agreement that the employer
has given.
At about this point there's the question of wether a rep will
agree to help someone who isn't paying to buy insurance jointly,
and it's hard to think of a reason why not. There is evan an
advantage in having more than once source of advice, and of members
getting to know the best firms to deal with. For those who enjoy
paying standing orders to each other to buy things in bulk, Paycare dental insurance offers
a pound off for people who buy as a group (the link was from
the Moneysavingexpert site).
Six people could outvote the Communist Party of Britain at
Branch 1/1148 of Unite-T&G and insist on a proper ballot
to control the £20,000 bank account (or do what they do:
keep up appearances and "donate" some of it to your
landlord). Skim-reading the net I see that even Unite-T&G
is running-down the budgets to its "lay structures",
prone to squatting as they are, rather than install the security
of online democracy and threaten their own status as union grandees.
I have not kept-up since 2007, but your union may just be like
this:
In Unite-T&G, 20 or 50 people can ask to be recognised as
a volunteer branch, get their own share of membership contributions
in their own bank account and protest more convincingly to the
local paid staff that panel lawyer is duff. Branch secretaries
can also try to get hold of the names and addresses of all branch
members from the people who run the central database, and send
them each a postcard asking for an email address. The parliamentary
branch of the T&G have managed to get their membership charge
reduced to £9.32 a month, and some branches have had a
shot at backing members of the quarterly national executive committee
for election. Anyone can stand apparently: there is no need to
be a union insider, but it does help if you want to get voted-in
and there is a kind freemasons party which controls who gets
some of the 8.7% turnout for election in contested seats, keeps
the committees private and decides in advance how they will vote.
Any brave person who mentions events in a blog to truckdrivers
or breathes words like "Eugine Finlay" "Swissport"
or "Belfast" is expelled from the party and not voted-in
next time.
Two reasons people don't found unions every day are that it's
rediculous - like starting a railway with only one station -
and that the day job and the rest of life seem more interesting.
But compared to being without any union, or relying on a feckless
one, this could be the least bad option.
Nine people can join the TUC, the General
Federation of Trades Unions, the Certification Office registry,
and still be real people who do a day job like skilled metal
work. Whether it makes sense or not depends on the people and
the history but the 117 year-old Sheffield
Wool Shear Workers' Union did just this until 2008 while
still doing skilled metal work jobs at Burgon & Ball, proving
it possible.
Eleven people out of a bargaining unit of 21 - a majority
among twenty or more - can ask the Central
Arbritration Committee to use court-like powers to make an
employer recognise a new union under Schedule 1 of the 1999 Employment
Relations Act and any other specialised
trades union law. Law emerges about whether all 21 people
need to join the union after voting for recognition, what a bargaining
unit is, and so-on. The Central Arbitration Committee has guidance
pdf leaflets and some some existing unions publicise this right
as well. Asking-around to find out if there is a current half-forgotten
union with a recognition agreement that people are wasting money
on may be a first step. Some of the mechanics of running a free
trial-run of a ballot are at the bottom of the hustings.html
page and ACAS may help confirm to an employer how many members
there are without the employer having to know all their names,
according to the union section on direct.gov.uk.
Two former industrial organisers from Unite's T&G section
in Scotland have started their own union just that for Dunfirmline
Council and an assembly factory with their small new United
Independent Union. The Central Arbitration Committee will
only help unions certified as indpenedent, which costs over a
thousand pounds, but somehow UIP managed to get the money together.
Some union work is easier for a large organisation to do.
Reminding members to get legal insurance
Maybe some members finding the best deals, or getting a special
deal as a group.
Small unions could be great at this, where large ones like
Unite-T&G have avoided any clear contract about when they
provide a lawyer and even exclude employment law calls from their
First Direct legal helpline. Their rule
book has a blank for Schedule II where the contract should
be, and an interview with The Lawyer magazine suggests they spend
66p per member per year on employment lawyers, minus the cost
of defending themselves against members who sue for bad service.
No wonder they avoid having a contract.
All that's needed is for everyone in a firm who has got legal
insurance to make this known to each other and use the process
as a reminder to others to get it. Bring the certificates to
meetings. Discuss small economies that offset the cost. Otherwise
it's the sort of thing that everyone wants in theory but nobody
gets around-to in practice.
The people who should be reminding every one else to get legal
insurance are the sacked and the sick, the quite-rightly-sacked
who could have been let-down more gently, the people on gardening
leave pending investigation of the allegations and people on
maternity leave who have just had a surprise letter saying that
their job has gone. And the manager who is bullying because he
has been told to do so before the director sits in judgent of
the inevitable complaint. None of these people are likely to
march down the street together with a banner and remind you to
insure. The only people likely
to do that are the people taking money out of some feckless
entryists society of a union that lingers-on in the public sector
out of sentimentality.
Volunteering to act witness or advocate to colleagues and
have a cup of coffee before and after the meeting.
This is a very practical thing. If Mr Ramsey sacks the chef,
he may be a bit more businesslike if the waiter is sitting-in
as a witness. If not, there are the notes to produce at a tribunal.
And even if the sacking was entirely fair, the person being sacked
has had a chance of a cup of coffee and a conversation about
it which is good for sanity all-round. It takes no degree in
counselling or social work to have a cup of coffee with a sacked
colleague who you have been forced to put-up with, for better
or worse, over the last few months anyway.
A frustration of workplace law is that so much is specific to
the workplace - why it's important not to blow your nose in the
lettuce - which would take ages to explain to a tired citizens
advice bureau volunteer who has never worked in a restaurant
but is obvious to anyone who was on shift there at the time.
Small unions could be good for this because it's hard for
the sacked and the still-employed to get in touch with each other
after the event. It's hard to ask for help. There isn't often
a physical way of communicating unless the sacked person has
colleagues' home email address, and if you're still employed
it's not good for your career to say "I'm a friend of
the chef you fired, Mr Ramsey"; better to say "the
staff have an arrangement to appoint reps: we swap emails strictly
for that reason only", which is risky enough, but probably
better than using the "union" word which sounds
daft for five people. The consolation to reps in good times is
that if you get sacked for being a rep then it wasn't worth working
there anyway and it it ever came to a head in a tribunal, this
would be a point in your favour. Another consolation of a formal
union system is that you can limit commitment to a colleague
who's case is too bad, too difficult, or too not-at-the-right-time-and-didn't-like-her-anyway.
Just as most people who have got embedded into a job would want
to volunteer to have a cup of coffee with a colleague who has
just got the sack and witness a disciplinary meeting, most people
wouldn't want to volunteer for a second cup of coffee, or any
other open-ended commitment like being a rep in a union that
doesn't provide legal help.
Getting recognition from an employer and an agreement to
meet once a quarter,
You could pass comments and suggestions to bosses and by-pass
the management line. This is as important for positive and negative
feedback:
- "we could get hankies"
- "Mr Ramsey bullies. He increases staff turnover which
is expensive and if a case comes to a tribunal they might award
damages against you, costing you even more money. When he shouted
at someone for blowing their nose in the lettice that was an
example of the problem"
Either point is hard to pass via the usual channels. This
isn't something a small amateur union can do well either. A volunteer
rep at the Catering Manager's office is still a waiter in the
manager's eyes who's comments will be reported straight back
to Mr Ramsey after the meeting; a paid official is seen differently
and is more difficult in practice to associate with any one troublemaker.
When Mr Ramsey asks how it went, the catering manager can say
"He did point out a few legal points, Gordon, which
I wasn't up-to-date on. Is there any kleenex in the kitchen?"
Unite-T&G did nothing to provide paid officials for recognition-agreement
meetings at my old employer. Their web site says they have only
400 staff for 750,000 working members and use no-win no-fee lawyers,
leaving over three quarters of members' subscriptions going into
a black hole. Each team of secretary and official would have
several thousand members to cover, so they couldn't possibly
do a good job if they tried. The union's own documents suggest
sweat heart deals: "we
began to increasingly view recruiting the employer as a key tool
in achieving growth and sustaining the future of trade unionism",
and there has probably been stiff competition from other feckless
unions
Mr Catering Manager: I work for Unison.
Rest assured that we are the most incompetent feckless bunch
of unionists on earth.
I don't want to do my fellow unionists down - we divert money
to Trades Union Cartels - but if the T&G want a fight I'll
take them on. They have an easy ride in proving their fecklessness.
I know they pay a lot of volunteer branches to help them look
silly and they no longer "prioritise" legal insurance,
but look at Unison v Jervis
on the employment appeal tribunal web site. We paid good money
to lawyers to argue against our own member and that's
not the only time employers have called us as witnesses. It wasn't
a one-off high-profile case either. Right from the start our
volunteers and officials shafted Mr Jervis and the Employment
Appeals Trubunal agreed with us that this is standard pracice.
If you're employing Mr Ramsey and are not sure whether to get
rid of him or get rid of the staff who he bullies, we make it
simple: we help you get rid of the junior staff every time by
pretending to be a union, taking their money and them letting
them down.
What better proof could you need that we are the union to recognise?
To be fair the article suggests that this sort of thing usually
happens by an un-stated lowering of expectations about what a
big union can achieve, rather than a kind of dutch auction to
the employer, but if a big union isn't getting recognised and
then passing comments and suggestions to management, maybe a
small one can.
After all the above about big unions being bad at recognition
agreements, it has to be said that small ones are bad too: if
they hire someone from Croner Human Resources for a day to be
their paid official, it will be an unfamiliar role; if volunteer
reps go as volunteers, they will be seen as volunteers and prone
to victimisation later. If they scour Google and neighbouring
small unions for officials who will do half a day's work, the
market will be unclear. Some human resources workers tout for
trade by the day as "mediators" and these could
be the ones who are willing to work for the employee's side.
MyGrievance.co.uk
is sponsored by one such.
An unusual small union is the United and Independent Union,
which won a case in an obscure tribunal called the Central Arbitration
Committee to be recognised whether the management liked it or
not at a first-aid-kit supplier in Scotland and have won voluntary
recognition at Dunfermline Council. They are unusual for a small
union because they are run by two ex-industrial organisers for
the T&G, so they know how these obscure tribunals and negotiations
work but for the rest recognition is even harder. Another small
union that hasn't won recognition is the Society
of Union Employees, 292 members of Unison's staff who have
decided they can do a better job themselves than the recogonised
T&G.
Protest
If your employer is so bad as to victimise reps, then you
need a reminder to change jobs. Help your employer to help you
change by being a rep, and, if they force you to change jobs
and there isn't a recession, they will have done you a favour.
The same goes for protest which should be a part of a fair
labour market at any employer when a consensus cannot be reached.
Most employees have one or two employers. Most employers have
two or many more employees and often human resources workers
to help them make the regular sackings look legal, so it is easier
to hire-and-fire than to apply-and-reply. Bad employers like
the Richmond Fellowship, Stonham, and English Churches Housing
Association may be spending a fortune on advertising for jobs
which they know people will leave when, with union help, they
might have made the jobs more do-able. I did voluntary sector
social work but you'll know the equivelant employers in your
own trade.
Small employers probably do worst of all out of all this but
generally it is the employees who do worst out of the labour
market compared to the employers, and this situation which leads
to a lack of consensus in some labour markets about the nitty
gritty of working life. In the Roman Empire, slaves and masters
used to swap roles once a year but in 21st century employment,
once a year would seem a bit much and maybe one April Fools Day
in three is often enough for the walk-out, the one-day-strike,
the standing-with-placards, the work-to rule or whatever the
carnival mischievous protesting instinct in us should think of.
Small unions are probably worst at this because they are easy
to victimise, so dual membership is worth having. It is possible
for a small union to join Industrial
Workers of the World. I was going to say they are rent-a-mob
but you decide, and, if membership of a national organistion
with a web site is your cup of tea, haggle for branch membership
rates. That is surely the spirit in which the 1922
T&G rule book was written - as a sort of franchise deal
by which active local branches could subscribe to get full-time
staff when needed.
Partnership
Another thing that unions can do is gradually set-up in business
themselves. If members are encouraged to make the most of any
employee share ownsership scheme or set-up
more on their own initiative, then members can take the tax
advantages and make it more likely that, come change of ownership
or a planned closure, they can suggest another idea. When Peugeot
closed Ryton, the T&G complained that it was a perfectly
good factory but the UK was one of the easiest places in Europe
to close factories, and so if a company wants to move production
to lower wage economies in East Europe it will close UK factories
first. This is true. Because of the sodding T&G. In other
parts of Europe there is a tradition of works councils who are
interested in their employers. In the UK there is a tradition
of independent unions which could buy shares in PLC employers
if they could be arsed but are more interested in funding the
Labour Party to protect them from prosecution from by own members.
Miscellaneous
Community,
a merger of shoe, steel & textile unions, consulted its members
about what a union should be.
A job agency was the most popular suggestion. A union of two
or twenty people might take it in turns to look for likely job
adds and post them on the email.
Before the welfare state, unions were one kind of friendly society
and hoped to offer grand retirement homes or medical and retirement
benefits. Employee benefit packages - usually sold to employers
for their most important staff - can just as easily be bought
by a handful of people. DAS, the legal insurance provider, also
offers sickness benefits while Thompsons Solicitors have teamed-up
with something less clear but similar.
Buying shares together is an unusual social hobby, but there
are signs online of some people doing it just as some people
form syndicates to bet on the grand national. Just as everyone
in a workplace hates un-necessary interaction they also hate
un-necessary boredom and so rituals like everyone sharing a bet
on the grand national are invented.
Buying employers' shares has obscure
tax advantages which it might be possible to unravel.
Individuals
investing in Zopa is a thought and takes no organising. Mostly
the loans go to prime borrowers, but, if I understand right,
middle-risk borrowers can put their case on a listings page and
tell colleagues that they're trying to borrow. "I'll put-in
a tenner at 10%", you can say, and given that Zopa do the
money-handling and debt collecting there's always a chance you'll
get it back.
In the public sector a union could put-in rival bids for the
same government grants, on bahalf of all the same staff with
a cheaper flatter management structure and no overloading of
top jobs and salaries. When the T&G was founded in 1922,
"the extension of cooperative production and distribution."
was so important that it's repeated in different words several
times and if they'd stuck to that they could have bought majority
shares in PLCs where members work by now. They haven't. Shits.
Small unions might have a go but it's the big momentum of a large
union that could inspire people better.
The only thing unions shouldn't do - big or small - is make donations
on behalf of members.
:
Why should employees buy legal insurance?
To get a free legal helpline, to get claims assessed by a
solicitor on the insurer's panel, and to get reasonable payment
up to a large amount paid to a lawyer for making claims. Some
of the things unions should do but don't.
What is it?
- a legal help line - probably about any legal question. A
worthwhile helpline should have specialist employment lawyers
to answer questions.
- assessment of a summery of your employment law case. Insurers
are allowed to use their own panel of solicitors for first assessment.
After that you have a right
to change solicitor or most people stay with the insurer's
one.
- payment of solicitor's fees for reading papers, writing letters
and arguing in a tribunal if your case is assessed as having
50% chance of success.
- Legal insurance sold to employers is often more like the
service of a trades union: cheaper staff who specialise more
in human resources can check and employer's contracts, provide
a standard staff handbook to adapt, or possibly attend meetings.
There may be unions that use a scheme like this instread of hiring
union officials - the Accord union of Halifax Bank of Scotland
staff certainly does and quotes the cost in their accounts at
the Certification Office.
Staff handbooks often have a clause asking lawyers not to attend,
but a "friend or union official" is often allowed.
It remains legal for the employer to insist on an official of
their recognised union - a kind of closed shop.
- Legal insurance for individuals or groups of two or three
people is often called "personal legal expenses insurance"
or "family legal insurance" and sold through
high street brokers rather than online. Lawyers have their own
jargon: "before the event" insurance in contrast
to their own trade schemes for managing risk "after the
event".
The government's Community Legal Service leaflet says this:
Where can I buy before-the-event insurance and what will it cover?
If you have car insurance, home contents insurance or a
credit card, you can often buy legal-expenses insurance as an
'add-on' or it may be included with the policy or card. If you
have to pay for it, it should cost you between £10 and
£50 a year. It will usually cover you for:
- personal injury (if you or a family member are injured
or killed due to someone else's negligence);
- employment issues (for example, if you are dismissed
unfairly, or injured at work);
- a consumer problem relating to a contract to buy or hire
goods and services;
- loss or damage to your property that was someone else's
fault;
- disagreements with neighbours about things like boundaries
or noise;
- tenancy disputes if you live in a rented house or flat;
and
- contract problems with buying or selling a house or with
non-structural building work (redecoration, for example).
If you have a before-the-event policy, you may also be
able to use it for problems that your family members have.
But you should always check first whether the insurance
will cover any problem you want to take legal action over.
Add-on insurance normally won't cover disputes relating
to:
- problems with government organisations (your local council,
for example); [?-this is untrue]
- slander or libel;
- the amount of an insurance claim; or
- a problem about a will or inheritance.
Where?
The short list of firms who might insure one person or a family
or a handful of people
Either your nearest insurance broker that looks as though
it deals with private people, or one that any of the insurers
below recommend if you ring them. It's a mixed list of firms
that might insure employers or a large group. One or two limit
their cover to £1,000. At a guess the others - the ones
that might recommend a broker to sell you a single policy - are
these.
This is the long list including a wider range.
Abbey Protection Group,
"minimum probably a thousand members"
Abbey can offer human resources staff as well as legal staff
as part of the same package, underwritten by Brit Insurance.
Allanz,
no quote asked for yet - family legal protection up tp £25,000
only covers employment tribunal disputes and excludes redundancy.
Only available via brokers.
Amicus Legal who
also hire Human Resources Workers under the name Staffrelations.
Recently bought out by DAS but still trading independently 7/07
Angel Assistance
no quote asked for - Family protection
Arag , Araglegal.co.uk, manages claims for
Brit Insurance
Brit
insurance's "family legal protection" - no quote
asked for yet. Related to Aircrew Protection Ltd who buy services
from Amicus Legal. One broker selling their legal insurance is
LSTA.co.uk
Capita insurance
Services, no quote asked for yet. No sign of personal legal
protection policies on their site.
Clarity-Legal.com
no quote asked for - advertised on Google 2/08 - seems to be
£3.99/yr but didn't answer an email asking for minimum
numbers that can be insured together. Closely linked to this
solicitor's firm in Bromley and Manchester.
Composite-legal.com
Composite Legal's personal legal insurance contract only covers
employment contract law up to £1,000. They also work with
the online human resources site Work4ce-online.com
and provide legal insurance to the British Chambers of Commerce.
DAS "£15
a year each for a thousand members". Refused to quote for
less, but their brokers like BibInsurance.co.uk
will sell a single policy @ £15 so a broker could probably
split the commission and sell for less than £15. The sales
manager had a good line in saying "we can help small
unions with panels of lawyers if they want, but more importantly
we can help unions manage the risk of paying for legal action"
Employee
Welfare Protection Group, Lowsoft has this one mention in
a directory.
First
Assist no quote asked for yet. No sign of personal legal
protection policies on their site, except while travelling.
Humane Resources Ltd
also offer tribunal help, up to appeal. As registered claims
handlers they can represent at tribunals and have done so - up
to appeal - but their speciality is human resources and dealing
with problems such as staff bullying.
LampInsurance.Com/legal_clientservices.aspx
no quote asked for.
Lawshieldcorporate.com/
only the first £1000 of employment law expenses
Lexelle-Online.co.uk/brokers_general_familylegal.html
price not known - cheap
Ppcadvice.co.uk (Now
Walters Kluwer) Human resources workers, rather than lawyers.
Used by Accord,
the union of Halifax Bank of Scotland staff. They charge £19,128
to represent 25,159 members; First Assist charge a similar amount
for a legal help line to the same group.
Mhlsupport uses human
resources workers as well as lawyers. The combined package costs
£36 per year per employee for a smaller firm. The price
is almost exactly the same as Staff relations, the human resources
part of Amicus legal. Their adverts are specifically employer-only,
so don't have employee experience.
MSL-LegalExpenses.co.uk/products_keystone.html
no-frills employment cover.
Self-insurance: keep all subscriptions invested somewhere
and pay lawyers directly. This is what Transport and General
does, when they want a headline that their no-win no-fee panel
can't deliver. It's probably too risky for a simple union without
paid staff because, firstly, the trustee might just go away with
the money and secondly the legal bills might be bigger than expected.
A Google of the phrase suggests a way of doing this more subtly
on large amounts of risk and money, but nothing for small unions.
Thompsons
are a national chain of solicitors which often provides services
to unions. In March 2008 they teamed-up with different firm of
the same name to provide legal cover for Thompsonsonlinebenefits
.The same benefit company will organise a group self-invested
personal pension scheme.
Towergate, a broker,
writes "To arrange the cover you require on an affinity
basis there would need to sufficient numbers to make it viable
to Insurers for a low cost policy. You do not indicate in your
enquiry the numbers involved but I would expect to see a minimum
of 1000 for this class of business. However I would point out
that the cover you are seeking is widely available to individuals
under their home contents insurance at a nominal cost of approx
£12 per annum and sometimes the cover is included free
of charge. I therefore suspect that the take up for this cover
would be low."
UniversalLegal.co.uk
claims to be a specialist insurance broker. "does not
typically arrange individual policies for either personal or
small commercial clients, although we will consider broking individual
risks where the premiums are likely to be substantial, for example
intellectual property insurance."
ULR Norwich
(Motorplus Ltd) Family Plus Scheme. One broker sells it to
the over-50s and puts the contract online. ? "£5 a year
plus insurance premium tax".
LEIG.ORG/members.asp
trade association is a source of contacts. Albany Assistance - is motoring insurance
only but the others are listed above. promising. Another source
of names of firms and typical costs is The Market for 'BTE' Legal Insurance prepared
on behalf of the Ministry of Justice, July 2007
When?
Buy it yourself now. If enough people sign-up to the list
above I'll try to get a group deal.
Why buy through
a group?
Legal insurance is almost impossible to buy on its own for one
person; it's only sold with household insurance.
But householders often aren't the people with stressful, arbitrary
jobs who most need a lawyer.
Traditionally, trade unions have filled the gap
People in public service jobs like teachers, nurses, social workers
& civil servants simply can't afford a house, let-alone insurance
and quite rightly aren't interested anyway: if someone steals
a sofa, why not just buy another? If they live in someone else's
house they're not the person who buys the insurance & scans
the small print for optional extras. Their only choice so far
has been to join a trade union or take the risk of an arbitrary
management pulling complicated tricks to end their career. Most
employers now realise that they are at risk of being exploited
by their employees, & hire human resources workers to keep
them legal in everything that they do. Employees are at even
more risk of arbitrary employers, because an employee has only
one or two jobs, which are not easy to change. She doesn't want
to be sacked, even if there is an arbitrary management or a manager
with a personal problem, there is always pressure to play safe,
even for the most efficient employees. It's sensible to do what
the employers do.
What's the group?
The absolute cheapest, simplest, minimum possible organisation
for people to buy legal insurance together is to give money to
a sole trader & get a service back.
If the best value quote involves people pooling their money &
making one payment together, there will be a high
interest bank account, a Paypal recurring payment system,
& publication on the web of as much information as possible
about money coming & going. This annual payment could be
so small as to be about what you could save by opting out of
the political fund of your union.
What's the risk?
Very little can go wrong - no more than at any corner shop or
a local insurance broker. You pay for insurance cover. The insurance
company has to be sure that they are not being sold higher-risk
claimants than imagined, & that the number of people covered
is what they've been paid for. They may do this by contacting
each customer individually & taking the money individually,
or they may trust employees.org.uk & the individual trustee
to handle that for them, or some mixture.
Customers have to be sure that the insurance company exists,
covers them, & is not deliberately chosen as worse in quality
than advertised.
Technicalities: is it registered?
Is anything in writing? Will anyone say
"you don't understand: the purpose of insurance is not
to legal insurance but solidarity"?
If the first step in starting a union is for all the members
to buy their own legal insurance and try to help each other slightly,
the second step is to cement goodwill in place with some sort
of formal statement.
A minute book with numbered pages was a Victorian requirement
for organisations. If money was involved a ledger of money in
and money out, and possibly a separate bank account along with
volunteer once-a-month job roles like secretary chair & treasurer.
You can see some of the details in the Transport
and General 1922 rule book, slightly amended till 2004.
This section on keeping in touch is very much notes-in-progress...
Now Joomla
, Drupal, and other collaboration software is meant to do
some of the clerical work of recording minutes. Add-ons exist
at http://civicrm.org. Another
free program is planned called membrane - search the Newunionism.net
site to find out if it's done. This kind of software works for
self-help communities like MyGrievance.co.uk,
but it takes time and skill to set-up. I haven't done it. I use
software that sits on a computer at home and is less good at
interacting with a server database and having moving parts -
that's why the sign-up form for starting your own union is hosted
on another site. Commercially-hosted free software like Yahoo
Groups could be the answer and there are services aimed at people
working together like some of the Google offerings. There are
usually free versions with advertising and obscure providers
offering better deals.
Wikipedia lists two catagories of software for keeping in
touch: collaboration software and online word processors.
Members of sites like Facebook have equivalents.
All look too formidable for the purpose; to choose whatever is
most familar would skip the problem of whether one is better
than another. The ability to work with someone else editing a
letter is useful to have, according to reviews, and Google Docs
formatting isn't good, but the essential quality is to keep people
in touch without using the work computer. Anything else can be
sorted if needed.
Online wordprocessors which are free for one person - usually
more - are
- http://www.ajaxwrite.com with Firefox
- http://www.edeskonline.com/
- http://www.nevrocode.com/docs/
- http://member.thinkfree.com/
- http://docs.google.com/
- http://home.zcubes.com/
- http://www.zoho.com/
The most useful details are the dull ones, unchanged from
the times of Victorian treasurers, secretaries and chairs: somewhere
to post minutes of any meetings and dates of the next; somewhere
to post accounts, an online polling service for votes. Somewhere
to list who has legal insurance and who doesn't and so can't
vote. This kind of service is available from Yahoo Groups, while
Google's hosted software allows collaboration on letters, so
that a member can ask another member for advice before printing
and sending. If the software doesn't allow one voter per email
address, Ballotbin
will send invitations to vote once to any email list. This site
is written on software that sits on the owner's computer, but
the more effective sort tends to sit on the server where it can
interact with a database and have more moving parts.
Nominet registers
UK domain names. This domain name & web site cost £16.98
together, bought from a web hosting company rather than Nominet
itself. Your only connection to Nominet is that the name of the
person or organisation is probably recorded there and people
can look it up on the Nominet web site if they want.
General
Federation of Trade Unions - a trade association like the
TUC for smaller unions. Their fee is under one pound per member
per year. They administrate state-subsidised courses in law &
negotiation. But hotcourses.com
has 177 courses on employment law without the GFTU-administered
subsidy, & most of them look quite cheap too.
The Information Commissioner
can if you like register that you hold information, for a fee.
There may be some legal requirement or hopefully not.
Companies
House register a limited partnership for £2, or £15
for a shareholder company, but there's a requirement for hiring
a qualified accountant above a certain level of turnover &
a £15 a year charge just for registering accounts. Given
the cheapness of limited partnership, it might be good for all
customers to be members of a partnership that then agree a trustee
but there's a legal obstical in section II of the Trades Union
and Labour Relations Act, which forbids a registered trades union
also being registered at Companies House.
The
Certification Office will state that it is aware of a union
for free, register it and show their form of details on their
web site for £150, certify a union as independent for £4,066.
Cheaper, an existing union with a handful of retired members
that wants to close might welcome a newer organisation's members.
The Scottish Carpet Weavers failed to send accounts this year
after last year's said they were thinking of winding-up: they
might donate the certification office name to you for free -
but probably not the reserves or any carpets - if you're nice
to them. When turnover reaches £5,000 a year the law requires
a qualified auditor to sign the accounts, which is another expense
unless you know a free accountant. References for this are on
a sheet headed "notes to auditors" sent to applicants
and a the
153 Industrial Workers of the World sent their slip back
as part of their union's 2006 return so you can read the detail
there. It refers readers to section
25 of the Companies Act 1989 and seems to mean an accountant.
This artical
about who can sign as an auditor seems as circular as the
act itself
Registration and certification do not mean much: The Stable Lads
Association registered and certified independent after several
complaints even though it was funded entirely by employers. Maybe
there's an Ecclstone Union of Racing Staff as well - I haven't
looked at the ones beginning with E - but the tax break on insurance
premium tax could be worth having along with the web link and
air of respectability.
The Central Arbitration Committee
coult be worth a look after setting-up a small union. It has
obscure and new powers on workplace consultation alongside an
older one to arbitrate on whether an employer holds a ballot
on whether to recognise a union: it has that power if it thinks
that a union is "independent" and has to believe so
if you have a £4,066 certificate of independence from the
Certification Office. If not, they also have fact sheets and
give general advice for the future.
Industrial and Provident Societies at the Register of Friendly
Societies no longer exist. New forms of company can now be
registered cheaply at Companies House, or the old register is
managed by the The Financial
Services Authority at Canary Wharf. You can still register
a society for £40 using an existing template for your set
of rules - it doesn't say on
the page where to find all the existing templates - but the
cost rises towards £950 for anything new. There's also
a £15 charge to see the accounts, which are not online,
taking away half the purpose of a public register, and section
II of the Trades Union and Labour relations act forbids Friendly
Societies from registering as Trades Unions as they used to.
The Community Interest
Companies Register is managed by Companies House and if a
company's object is not profit then it's a replacement to the
Industrial and Provident Society's register. A test of a Community
Interest Company is whether the takings are locked-in to the
company rather than being available for divvying-up.
The
Charities Commission registers charities and provides evidence
to a local tax office that any money in the union account is
not the treasurer's or the members' in the sense that they should
pay tax on it. Most employees pay tax as PAYE and do not trouble
the tax office with small amounts that they earn in other ways,
so the issue is probably only important if you try to stop paying
income tax at source on a deposit account, your bank will do
it if you fill-in the right form, but there's some uncertainty
about whether you are a charity. Two ways round this problem
are to use accounts which don't take tax at source - Zopa; Kaupthing
Edge in the Channel Islands - or just to let the bank take a
few pence off the interest payments and not to worry about it.
People who provide goods and services for money don't have to
pay VAT below a certain threshold of money turning-over, so VAT
is unlikely to apply.
More relevant to a micro-union is whether to have a separate
account at all. If everyone has their own legal insurance and
there are no other costs then no money changes hands. If a few
people start buying together, they may at first be people who
are willing to take a risk and let the buyer put the money in
her pocket or any half-forgotten account that she has anyway
and could clear-out to use just for this. If it's worth coaxing
more people to pool money, then they are the judges of what gives
them confidence. Faxing the statements to an email account or
scanning them could be good, and putting them online without
the account details.
- The Abbey National sometimes allows a free account in a business
name, depending on likely turnover. If someone has an account
like that unused, it's probably easier to change the name than
to start a new account.
- Better is a current and a deposit account in the treasurer's
name which is no harder for her to raid but could get higher
interst until she does so. For those used to large organisations,
this ramshackle arrangement can look daft - but no more daft
than Unite branch
1/1148 paying all available money to a standard list of charities
including the communist party's landlord, and without any accounts
on their web site and refusing to pay for a lawyer when the regional
office fails to provide one. That was the prompt for this. They
know this web site exists. Their accounts are still not public.
- Best are high interest deposit accounts that don't deduct
interest. Zopa
is one for long-term saving. It could also allow loans to members
so it suits the traditional role of unions as friendly societies
even it it's never used for that in practice. Kaupthing Edge
or whatever is the best
offshore deposit account is good for money that can be withdrawn
within days. Current accounts depend on what people happen to
have available to them - most of us have a dormant one.
Certified or Chartered Accounts
check accounts better than book-keepers or online access to the
bank statement for £50 an hour. But not yet: some kind
of online Google spreadsheet or scanned image of recent bank
statement entries would allow all visitors to the site to audit
the accounts for free. There are laws about organisations registered
at Companies House, the Certification Office, & the Charities
Commission having to have their accounts signed. The law seems
different for each register, and is stricter for limited companies
if they sell insurance than if they do anything else.
BACS
direct debits might be possible through an expensive bureaux
service, and Paypal also offers a recurring payments system between
users, paying-in to a zero-interest paypal account. What the
Industrial Workers of the World do is make out a standing order
to the treasurer with a standard reference. That's free.
At times when credit card companies are making money, an affinity
group credit card would be ideal for paying small commission
towards membership. MBNA have closed their scheme, leaving Liverpool
Victoria's still going. Perhaps this isn't a good time to ask
though.
Possible Questions:
How do I join?
There's a form at the end of the main index.html page for
anyone who wants to leave their details. If a few dozen people
sign-up, I'll try to get legal insurance or if you can get a
handful together where you are then you could do it yourself.
I organise another small union. Can we buy services together
if it gets us a better price?
I haven't got any firm members yet, but when so, yes please.
The Associated Train Crew Union say they've found another union
to share membership services with
I am a lawyer / human resources worker / union official. Can
I work for you for a salary?
No thank you: there are no plans to employ staff directly. For
union officials, this link looks worth a try:
http://www.newunionism.net/jobs.htm
I am an employee. Can I volunteer as a rep, acting as a witness
in meetings, doing a little gentle negotiation, & feeding
back questions from colleagues to an official for advice each
quarter? I'd like my colleagues to get more organised, meet the
employer quarterly and try to get them to sign a recognition
agreement if possible.
You can do some of these things unofficially as a "friend"
of someone who is going to a disciplinary meeting for example.
There may be some way to log your willingness on this web site.
It's too early to say how to organise this more, but the European
Works Council Directive has been written into UK law while this
site has been up, with 50-100 member workforces needing a Works
Council after April 2008, so something is happening. Not much
is happening here at Employees.org.uk and the tricky part could
be overcoming embarrasment for several colleagues just to buy
legal insurance and call themselves a union.
I am a volunteer who wants to help, partly to get experience
& partly to be useful. Do you have any ideas?
With web design, yes. The tricky bit is finding free programmes
to handle memberships.
If the thing took-off there might be post to answer, & perhaps
requests for speakers. I'm not getting requests from other people
setting-up unions, so I can't pass-on any offers.
I've seen these questions on your web site for a few months.
You haven't started a union yet.
Why lecture others about things you haven't done yourself?
To give take-it-or-leave-it advice is a quick way to give an
opinion about how to do something. A few people have signed-up
on the list below and hopefully more will over time. Meanwhile
the best place to start a union is among colleagues in a few
related workplaces - preferably at one or two employers to show
independence. I've gone for self-employment instead but if you
are still in the employee rat race you might have a better chance
of starting your own union, if not of making a fool of yourself
and typing a lot of stuff about work onto the internet. Self
employed people are lucker that way.
Footnote #1
The Certification Office accounts for Twenty First Century Aircrew
Association show 5 members and four paying members, contributing
£50 each, who use the union to pay for legal insurance
from ALPL, who
would charge £126 a year to individual applicants. ALPL
seem related to Brit insurance and buy services from Amicus
Legal of Colchester: Puzzlingly, they earned fees from the
insurer last year rather than paying subscription to the insurer.
Sheffield
Wool Sheep Shearers Association, another small union that
also joined the TUC and earned a place in the Guinness Book of
Records, decided to close this year.
Starting our own union:
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