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Where it goes... nobody knows
This page is meant to collect others together that are quoted
to show where the money goes, because nobody says "I
am recruiting people who pay for one thing but spending their
money on another", not even the government ministers
who now want public contractors to extoll the benefits of union
membership as a condition of getting a contract, or their rabid
back-benchers who manage to exclude unions from the need to register
with the financial services authority and quote other firms in
the claims roundabout scam as though union sainthood was self-evident.
As in employment disputes, the facts are often concealed
or half-concealed or hinted at in a way that only has a meaning
there and then, in context. A few pages have found their way
on to this site like the accounts of the communist party of great
britain, which has the same relationship to my union as the Labour
Party but on a tiny scale, just as evidence to help readers guess
where the money goes. It's puzzling for casual readers to see
a page about the Communist Party of Britain or the Morning Star,
so here they are now grouped together. As time passes more explanation
may follow below, but it is work in progress written in odd scraps
of time without much short-term memory.
Just as a fringe political party illustrates the problem of
where the money goes, so breakaway unions illustrate the trouble
of knowing where it could in theory come from. The
small independent worker's union which took cash for votes from
Siemens in Germany showed some skill in covering the payments
up, as did Siemens. The Union
of Democratic Miners' staff have shown great entrepreneurial
skill in taking commission from Beresford's solicitors straight
to accounts in private names, to save their employer embarrassment
or maybe unknown to their employer, but the quotes at the bottom
of the union-charges-lawers.html#10
page show the same law society tribunal the catches small unions'
referral fees overlooking big union's referral fees. There are
none as a separate item on the union's public accounts, so anybody
who reads them has to form their own judgement about they show
all the in-bound payments.
http://www.employees.org.uk/accounts-CPB.html
This page quotes the account to the electoral commission of
a small hobbyist political party with only thirty seven paid-up
members in England and Wales, but with a floor of a Georgian
office bloc called Ruskin House to use for offices and training
sessions, a leased full-colour printing press, a free training
seminar called "Communist University" and several
other publications which they urge their thirty six members to
sell. (Sadly, one died under pressure to produce a pensioners'
something-or-other for the newspaper of one of the meetings -
activists' loyalty is called-on pretty loudly). None of this
means the 36 steal millions illegally from trades unions, and
one thing they don't mention is an interest in fine art by one
of their supporters related to an inheritence by a stalwart activist
of very large amounts of money. Some of this may be paid for
by fine art. But there are accounts of my local branch showing
activists who are employed as volunteers at Communist Party of
Britain controlling a substantial local budget and donating to
most of the polictical causes and charities on the list of those
that don't give public receipts that used to be published by
Transport and General Region One, based in London. Apart from
the suspecting that these activists donate to a political party
via kickbacks for donations, I know they give money to Ruskin
House (the communist party's landlord), the Marx Memorial Library
and the Cuba Solidarity Campaign. I've seen them do it. I was
at the meeting. The one after one colleague had complained to
them of lack of help and legal advice after a bust-up with my
employer, and who was presumably complaining to them because
the paid staff avoided contact. After such an event honest people
would have marched down the street in protest against this union,
set up their own, and broken down the pretence to colleagues
that the union really existed. Not so. They had their annual
general meeting with a guest speaker from a cause they funded,
sandwhiches, a banner, and a show of several hands for the thousand-odd
members approving donations to all the causes on the list. The
list was stapled to the minutes of the previous months' meeting,
where complaint number one had happened.
So: Communist Party of Britain is much better funded than
other british communist parties of the same size (I forget their
names) which have trouble buying a replacement second hand litho
press and who trade from a PO box. I suspect that more money
flows from unions to political parties than is officially declared,
and that even the declaration is underhand.
Evidence for this is a loss-making newspaper which somehow
manages to stay in business. It makes losses even after donations
from the "fighting fund" which the editor states
in an interview is donated by union related organisations. The
sorts of organisations by inner city union branch donates-to.
It "donates on behalf" after self-electing on
behalf of the thousand-odd members: you have to be angry enough
or mad enough to want to go to an obscure evening meeting with
people you don't know or don't want to know to see this in action.
It is easy to buy a few shares in this paper and get a copy of
the accounts and rules of the society that runs it. These show
a shareholder co-operative of activists spending other peoples'
money, and the more non dividend shares they buy, the more votes
they get. It is not a staff co-operative. It is not a reader
co-operative. It is a shareholder co-operative.
http://www.employees.org.uk/accounts-PPPS.html
The rest of this page may be about where union money goes
in future but meanwhile, unless you believe their accounts, nodody
knows.
- Money goes on staff pay, working in teams of official,
secretary, receptionist and elected regional general secratary
or regional manager with auditors, trainers and the rest in tow.
Presumably the pay-roll is the easiest bit for an accountant
to check, and no accountant would risk reputation and professional
membership by faking figures. Just as Arthur Anderson wouldn't
fake figures for Enron. The accountants' firm that audits parts
of Unite is conveniently based at Transport House and is one
of the very few in the market for the messy work of auditing
unions and friendly societies so it's a fact that there's less
competition to set rates than among accountants for other types
of firm. Obviously, Arthur Anderson lost their reputation and
had to close after Enron collapsed but the union accountants
are a subsiduary of another firm trading under a different name
(I'm being vague here - generalising from one fact to unions
in general but it is a general point) so maybe the embarassment
of that one brand name and transport house office would not loose
customers for the parent firm. "Did they really?",
the parent firm might say. "Well I never".
Talking theory here, and not just about unions or one union's
accouncy firm, anyone who gets a big contract or a contract with
a big margin finds it hard to resist requests for favours. I
worked for a street outreach team once for homeless people. The
transport fell apart. One member of staff had contacts at Sainsbury's.
"I'll find out if they can pull a few strings",
she said, and they did, meaning I imagine that a Sainsbury's
buyer can hint or insist or thump the table and punch to make
a supplier donate to a favourite chairty and there is not much
a supplier can do but pay. Senior politicians in ruling political
parties can do this, but tend to let their victims down. "Your
opinions are very interesting Mr Foreigner", they say;
"What joy to have lunch in your company" and
of course nothing is delivered and the sponsor can't sue. One
shoe factory owner in the 1970s sued a chain-store buyer for
taking the bribe and not delivering the contract, but these cases
are rare, and suspicion of large buyers' relationships with suppliers
should therefore be more common.
- Offices cost, and maybe more than they should. Unions
seem able to close office blocks easily on merger, or use them
as meeting spaces: Amicus sold a stately home on merger with
the T&G while one of the two parts of the University and
College union had a Central London office now used for political
meetings and conferences.When I spend half a day doorstepping
a Unite-T&G official at their London office, only about three
people walked past. A teenage bike courier in skin-tight clothes
came proudly to say "I've come to pay my dues".
"Yes", said the receptionist who does crochet:
"you know where it is". A confused looking man
came with a benefits form. Someone in a bicycle helmet walked
past. That was about it. Finally the receptionist rang the official
and said "it's embarrassing keeping him here",
so the official came down and lead me up again to his office
through vinyl-floored corridoors like a closed old peoples' home.
Few other people seemed to be in the building.
When the office was closed for decoration there was plenty of
space at the then central office of Transport House, which is
huge. Plenty of people walk in and out of Transport House because
there are meeting rooms on the ground floor for exhibitions and
branch meetings, but what happens in all those floors above?
Likewise University and College Union used to be two unions,
with separate offices. It still has them. But one is used for
conferences and meetings. So where are the staff? A recent TV
intereview with the general secretary shows quite a sensible
looking office on the first floor with a lot of Dell computers,
all rather efficient-looking.
Talking theory here, and not just about unions or one union's
landlord [see above].
- Volunteers cost in terms of the sheer volume of paperwork
and phone calls, much as people in the public eye find they get
requests from students and well-wishers to write their essays
or say a few words. Motions are passed. Fraternal greetings are
sent from around the world. All this lands on the doormat or
costs so-much an hour for staff who have had to get up early
to commute-in from Upminster and would prefer time-off in lieu.
This very web site is an example. A union removes Shedule II
from its rule book, which would have listed services to members.
It then changes the rule book completely to talk about funding
the Labour Party with a personal injury claims management firm
instead of stuff like the www.jol.co.uk web site. In the vacuum,
as anyone in the voluntary sector will tell you or anyone in
mangement, people work hard to fill-in their own expectations
of what should be done for them. If frustrated, their compaints
are bolder still because they have done the work of trying to
work out what they think a union (or manager or voluntary sector
agency) should be.
- Lawyers cost. They don't cost in personal injury claims
above £1,000, but they cost in claims under £1,000
because the small claims court limit in what you can claim to
- Politics cost via the opt-outable political fund. The strange
arithmatic of these funds is easy to find on Google. Unions donate
more than the fundable amount per member. If they can be so bold,
a sceptic might draw conclusions too.
- Clearly personal frauds have hapenned in the past and are
likely to happen in the future where people begin as idealistic
union officials, break-down or become cynical, are under pressure
for some reason, and see money sloshing-about in ways that nobody
else can monitor for causes that the individual is cross about,
or dissilisioned. For example if a bunch of people gave you a
thousand pounds to look-after and sometimes some of them arrived
once a month to donate it to some political party or other, without
note of members or practicalities, you or I might think "Well
then, for today, I am the local party". From what I can
glean online, it's strange that this
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