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Trade
Union Wishlist
I hope the important thing is to expose the scandal of feckless
unions so that members can fix them or ditch them for ones that
- don't donate "on behalf" to anyone - not
the Communist Party's landlord, not the Labour Party central
office: nothing.
- are transparent, with online accounts and wide elections
using something like Ballotbin.com have got themselves
on some kind of authorized scruteneers list that includes Electoral
Reform Services as well. (more here)
- pass whistle blowing complaints of bullying or good management
suggestions up past the management line
- lay down the law when the management line is beginning to
do something illegal, rather than hope to settle later and watch
it all happen again. Most complaints to the bullying advice line
were about serial bullies.
- represent properly in complicated tribunal cases where there's
not much money to be made for a no-win no-fee lawyer but a lot
of points of principal at stake. To use lawyers and human resources
workers that are a good as the employers' - on time, up to date
with law, with enough paid hours to prepare a bundle and a budget
to pay barristers solicitors and other officials if that's what
it takes. Two of the people who either ordered my boss to bully
or ordered whistle blower's discrimination are still employed
at different agencies in more senior jobs.
A condition of a tribunal settlement could be that they wouldn't
get a reference. They're not employable.
- Walk-out once in a blue moon, protest, send a letter to the
local paper, write to the chairman
- Buy more and more shares, set-up rival employers, apply for
the same grant that grant-funded employees are getting through
their unwelcome managers: just generally represent employees
in any logical way.
Most of the feedback and interest in this site has been from
political union people rather than people who have got the sack,
so I've offered free opinions to each potential type of reader
below - a good thing to all of us who like opinionated rants
and necessary for transparency. I am not attacking the Socialist
Workers' Party because I believe that New Labour should get all
the money (which seems to be a reason for unfair dismissals of
Amicus union officials at the moment). There are no opinions
here about the Communist Party of Britain, The Labour Party,
The Marx Memorial Library, Cuba Solidarity Campaign, Campaign
for Labour Party Democracy or any of the dozens of organisations
for which my union raises money because it's the removal of money
that makes the difference rather than where it moves. Like most
people, I haven't read any of their political stuff. If a thief
stole my video I wouldn't say "your honour: he used it
for taping bad programmes and that is the reason I am here today".
I wouldn't have to. I would try to get insurance for things I
couldn't afford to loose, the police would try to sort-out criminals,
and if my insurance company or union was a fraud it would get
in the papers and they would be easy to sue.
Unfortunately in the world of employment and unions it's all
very different and those who have suffered most from crime are
those who have to try to take it to court and find the system
stacked against them. And those who use public services. These
are provided by directors and senior management teams who you
would not buy a second hand car from or hire to do building work,
and who do little in the way of management or direction, but
specialise in a kind of machiavellian rat race that bogus unions
condone.
- Buy legal insurance to back-up your union membership. I regret
not doing this and want to advise others to do it. If this site
is about anything, is is about saying that I wish I had had legal
insurance. It isn't for sale on the web as far as I know but
you could either contact the insurerers
and ask them to suggest a broker that sells their product, or
go to an insurance broker and ask if they deal with any of the
legal insurers. "Family Legal Cover" is often
what it's called. Ideally, get insurance that covers professional
negligence so you can sue your union if it lets you down.
- Opt out of the political fund unless you agree with where
the money goes. This could save more money than you have just
spent on legal insurance which is why I mention it. Just email
your union central office with the words from the act: "National
Union of Teachers' POLITICAL FUND (EXEMPTION NOTICE). I give
notice that I object to contributing to the Political Fund of
the Union, and am in consequence exempt, in manner provided by
Chapter V1 of Part 1 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations
(Consolidation) Act 1992, from contributing to that fund. Paid
Cymru have set-up a special
form: "a cheap publicity stunt" according
to the T&G's press office, run by a communist who also runs
one of the political organisations paid for by the fund.
- If your union is like the T&G, with an unpaid self-election
committee holding a branch budget, you could keep asking and
embarrassing them to hold broad elections by post or online
until they do it. If they don't have a way of contacting members
to ask how to spend the branch budget or what to say to an employer
at a recognition agreement meeting they are basically bogus shits.
Or do what the Communist Party does: raise a possy of seven to
outvote their five or six activists, and then do only what seems
worth your time and patience, like emailing all members with
proper voting arrangements and finding-our what the regional
budgets are for officials' salaries and lawyers. One move might
be to split the branch account per member and send a cheque to
each (which is a way of checking their addresses and getting
a response) and asking them each to give an email address to
be able to vote on future spending.
- As above, put the word around that you would rather support
colleagues who have legal cover. That's common sense. Otherwise
you are caught in the middle between a feckless union and an
ex-colleague. Or study law in your spare time, become an unpaid
solicitor and barrister while holding-down your day job and despite
the risk of victimisation and getting on with your own life.
That's what suits the union financially and they will push as
hard as they can for you to do it. If there is difficulty in
your union in exposing the lack of clear contract, do your bit.
If your union is Unite T&G then put the current rule book
on a web site or somewhere and ask anyone who will listen to
collect their thoughts ready for any consultation on the next
one.
- Some reps try to insist on meetings with the paid officials
(who in T&G tend not to reply to return calls to anyone but
insiders) and to take the member along with them. That's another
way to avoid getting stuck in the middle and a good one. Otherwise
you'll end-up like Sandra Beeton
at the Eric Shepherd Unit of Hertfordshire NHS Trust, quoted
forever as doing the union's dirty work.
Union officials may pretend, as mine did, that it's OK to talk
about something entirely different and then close the meeting
without offering to do anything. After the meeting my first rep
said "I have to go to the lavatory" to avoid embarrassment
and as far as I know she's still there. If you didn't become
a union rep in order to hide in the lavatory, why not thump the
table, or make a completely ridiculous threat that you can't
believe you've just said? Why not draw attention to the problem
rather than skirting around it? It's a lot easier than being
rude to your boss.
- Switch unions if anyone knows a good one
Bunches of employees should find it far easier to switch unions
than individuals because they can take the network of volunteer
support with them.
Unfortunately, members at a work may not know each other particularly,
they're busy doing the real job and sometimes the getting-on-with-management
job too, which can be quite unrelated and involve lots of initiatives
and meetings. There isn't time for a third job thinking about
a trades union.
After some kind of online voting system is set-up for a branch
it might be possible to get a dozen people voting for or against
a motion, rather than the usual activists. It might be possible
for someone who isn't the branch secretary to send a message
to all members. So if one or two people know that they want to
switch, it might be possible for them to take a dozen with them.
The Cerfication office lists dozens of other unions to switch-to.
My guess is that if two or three people in a drab meeting say
"the reps recommend XYZ union", and can get the message
to colleague members, then at least half the current membership
will change. If the old union hears that you three union reps
are willing to do this, they might offer a better service and
say "yes we will sign a contract to say what we offer your
shop", or "no: we will show your members what bastards
we really are". Either way, you will discover next month
and many employers will let you help members of any union or
none - it's only the paid services that are denied non-members
and those who stay with a bad union make their own decision.
If all the unions that anybody has ever heard of are worse than
useless, or members of the union's cartel - whatever it's called
- which tries to reduce competition between unions by carving-out
turf between them, you can do worse than start
your own union
These first five points should be written-in to recognition
agreements to make them stick. Either the employer or the union
could suggest a change, and an individual member could suggest
to either of them that they make a change.
1) For branch elections to be held by the broadest cheapest
system - usually online.
This used to be expensive so the
law only insists on postal ballots for senior jobs. The T&G
rule book expects all members to turn-up like a football crowd
once in two years and show hands. Our generation should work
at least half as hard as they did to have proper ballots.
Now, Ballotbin or some
of the all-in email group
systems will invite each person on an email address list
to vote once for free, avoid double-voting, display results and
so-on. Surely anyone who used to stuff envelopes to get union
stuff to members is now trying to get members' email addresses,
so a machine that lets you invite the whole lists to vote and
stops anyone voting twice is the obvious next step. It is easier
to take a risk on a new system locally than for the national
office to impose it on 750,000 members tomorrow. They have to
look sensible and anticipate all problems. If a branch election
goes wrong you can just shrug. They would probably claim a union
modernisation grant for Electoral Reform Services to set-up a
system. In a local branch you can just try Ballotbin and see
if it works.
Local branch committees can be made up - as mine is - from
among the 37 of members of the Communist
Party of Britain who promote the worst possible voting system
to ensure a less than 1% turnout and have a long tradition of
making donations to favourite causes. It's ridiculous when they
do it but the same logic applies when the Labour party pinches
cash too, and more so because it fuels more demand from both
big parties in exchange for neglecting fair union law.
My local branch is not connected to any one employer and not
in touch with people informally, but they don't have a formal
system either and the way the T&G union rule book is interpreted
now allows a show of hands in a back
room every two years as an election method if the committee
want. Of course they do. Communists don't win elections any other
way according to their report to the electoral commission. They
are not frightening people to deal with, but depressingly anxious
to please by giving other peoples' money away, writing one dimensional
slogans to attract other interest groups, marching with banners
and not complaining to the union's regional office about duff
lawyers. Or not very loudly - not with any threat that they will
cease to recruit new members or ask the same question next month
or anything so drastic. T&G offices tend to ignore everyone
but reps. My rep's complaints were fobbed off by someone who
was "very senior".
2) For all union voters to acknowledge that they have seen
the accounts
Shareholders do. Union members would do if their organisations
were mutuals, but all the ones I've noticed are odd trusts running
membership organisations, which is nifty but no excuse: those
who vote at union elections should sign to say "I have read
the accounts and vote for..." or not vote at all.
3) Direct elections to budget-holding volunteer committees
Ballotbin.com
allows everyone on an email list to be invited to vote once.
Demochoice.org is another free service.
If the same email that invited members to vote included last
year's accounts, I think the daftest committees would get a good
turnout for change. If the email vote were held after a face-to-face
meeting and show of membership cards, with the outcome reported
by the chair, I think the real result might overturn the face-to-face
result and more people might want to go to face-to-face meetings.
If not, the vote would surely not be reduced: anyone who has
gone to a meeting would be likely to confirm the vote online
when they get home.
If a large union set-up a system like Yahoo for free online
email, I think a lot of activists would like to use it. Over
time perhaps as ballot-rigging techniques are discovered, so
better balloting techniques would be discovered and allowing
each paid-up member one email account might be part of that automated
system.
Here's the sort of thing that has to go: The
Sector Bi-Annual Delegate Conference. If it has a budget
from member's subscriptions, and it is run by elected volunteers,
it should be directly elected and not elected by people delegated
to elect from committees that say they are elected because in
truth only six people want to turn-up to the South London Voluntary
Sector Unite-T&G branch meeting every month and there are
seven traditional volunteer posts so everyone just keeps a straight
face and divides-up the £20,000 bank account.
The Sector Bi-Annual Delegate Conference seems to be a job
interview for regional general secretaries in which they address
the miniscule activist vote with foreign policy suggestions and
gain or loose their jobs accordingly. Whether they have ever
shown their face in an employment tribunal for Unite-Transport
and General seems to be the last thing on the agenda but then,
as a member who isn't an activist, I wouldn't know because I've
never seen the agenda or what goes-on at the Sector Bi-Annual
Delegate Conference or delegated anyone to go there. I just have
a gut feeling it might be held in a decaying seaside town: watch
this space for updates. 21/02: Yes
it is - and what a strange way of appointing staff it is.
It looks like Eurovision,
but there isn't a way for daytime TV viewers to phone-in their
votes for favourite slogans so I suppose it's even less democratic
than Eurovision. Since I first wrote that it has emerged that
some of the Eurovision phone-ins were rigged in favour of the
Franco government entry, "la la la", but at
least there is some attempt at polling. Anyway, the third
picture to from the bottom, left-hand side shows someone
who also crops-up on the Communist
Party of Britain page. He is also a newspaper
commentator and writes something which would be great if
he could make it happen in his union:
For a start, socialism makes possible the re-establishment
of democracy whether at national, multinational or global level.
Capitalist globalisation has become synonymous with democratic
powerlessness as all important decisions are taken further away
from the people affected and concentrated in the hands of ever
fewer corporate bosses, private equity and publicly traded alike,
for whom the common weal cannot be their priority.
4) Union contracts ("rule books") to be displayed
on the certification office web site, to show their paternal
idealism, if it's the T&G
I asked. The certification office said they were considering
it. The things are still not there two years later. Taxpayers
have paid salaries to these people. Shits. The Belfast Certification
Office complain too much of their office time is spent answering
Freedom of Information Act requests, so it must surely be in
the civil servants' interest to put as much information as possible
online so that they don't have to answer enquiries about it.
The existing law says that the union must send its rule book
to this office in Bermondsey High Street (or George Street Edinburgh,
Gordon Street Belfast) but the internet is where more taxpayers
look.
5) For members to sign a contract when they join the union.
At the moment you get an A5
flyer in an envelope full of slogans, pictures of people
smiling, and financial offers such as credit cards and pet insurance.
These include key facts statements, major exclusions, and enforcably
clear descriptions of when your pet will be insured. Your pet
can read exactly when it can go to the vet, the maximum amount
of cover, major exclusions and so-on so you might assume that
it's owner gets the same rights and that a contract the matches
the
usual law of contracts has fallen out of the envelope. It
hasn't. There isn't one. The flyer says "legal assistance
and advice" but the paid official usually decides whether
you can have a solicitor's assessment, when, and which solicitor
you have to go to. This decision is controlled by his boss and
the union budget, which in the T&G's cases is 66p per member
per year for employment lawyers. If you want to use your legal
right to change solicitors the union can change their mind about
the strength of the case, as they did with mine. If you send-off
for the rule book, it reads like a general statement of purpose
and the courts have interpreted union rule books very loosely
with a lot of consideration of custom and practice, so there
is no detailed statement of rights at all - the "schedule
II" mentioned in my union's rule book does not exist.
6) For unions to back members with a 50% chance of success
in employment law.
I think this is implied to members when they join and unless
stated otherwise should be easy to enforce in law. I don't know
how, because it's difficult to see how a legal system that's
meant to work for buying toasters and pet insurance seems to
fall-down when buying union membership. Over the years judges
have overcome this kind of muddle in employment law with "implied
terms" in any employment contract and something similar
- whether from judges or from an act passed in parliament - could
help: a trades union implied terms bill. Majority labour MPs
have argued very strongly for the status quo just recently forcing
the legal services bill to go through parliament twice. Their
argument if any was that there is a magic relationship between
a grateful member and an avuncular union official which would
be undermined if the official were forced to do anything. That's
not about buying toasters, though: they are all in favour of
consumer rights being spelt-out and easy to enforce except for
the rights of union members.
7) Real votes:
Next time there is a change of party in government, someone
is bound to sort out unions. Do it first. Run real votes of real
members for more union offices and all budget-holding offices.
This is not illegal and there may be unions doing it already.
They should come out of the closet and boast about it. If you
are an activist in a union branch, you shouldn't say "the
region would probably not allow it" as my secretary
said to me. You should set-up a free Yahoo group, use your existing
list of members' email addresses and invite them to register
so that they can vote with the free poll system that's included.
Another option is services like Ballotbin
which invite everyone on an existing email list to vote once.
The same service could publicise minutes and accounts. If you
have time for some scanning you could even include some receipts,
and if you know of any obscure rule books, policies and phone
numbers which the union has forgotten to give to members, there
is plenty of space for those. And if the region chucks you out,
as ASLEF did to someone at Associated Train Drivers' Union, do
what he did and set-up a better one.
8) Buy proper legal insurance
...of the sort that employers have. This is a quantifiable
clear service that you can show you are offering members. If
you are a branch activist, there might be money in the local
budget to pay £5-15 a
year per member. I tried to pass a motion for this but it
was "put on one side", as "what you
really need is a lawyer". We got to this stage because
(like the branch chair and my colleague from the same firm) I
had discovered how much worse than useless the branch's panel
lawyers was, so I sacked him and asked for another. My branch
secretary liaised with Ms Philp, a senior administrator among
the paid regional staff. "John, Ms. Philp implied that
an opinion from OH Parsons
would be very soon - as Ms. Philp said ET things are always 11th
hour - so in her view the two weeks was plenty of time. I assume
as your file is with OH Parsons for the second opinion - if the
decision is to support they will be the ones taking on your case.
Ms. Philp explained that she is the person who deals with these
matter for the Region - so has experience. [sic] She was also
very clear that the procedures [sic] were going to be kept
to. Cheers" This is a all wrong because OH
Parsons could not have had the file. I retrieved hand-written
notes from the other solicitors. Ms Philp doesn't sound much
cop either. For example she was either assembling a bundle of
documents for me by telepathy or she thought that union members
don't deserve them, and there's no sign of a track record or
a qualification. Maybe if your main function is to take money
out of union budgets you are prepared to be awed by Ms Philp.
9) Buy shares in PLCs where your members work and send
questions by letter to the general meeting.
My union's central office holds millions of pounds in low-interest
bank accounts, government bonds and unit trusts. The unit trusts
are only £8 per member but add-up to £6m altogether,
and could be converted to vote-holding shares in union-members'
PLC employers immediately. (Individual employee shareholders
can ask questions anonymously through Investorvoice.co.uk
too)
Brewin
Dolphin's Stocktrade is one of online stockbrokers that's
unusual in passing-on voting rights of shares - not that there
would be many votes to start with anyway. But unions last a long
time and a small investment every year for a hundred years adds-up
to a lot of votes at shareholders' meetings, as well as a lot
of dividends and increased value for the union.Union
Ideas Network have published something on votes at work,
signed by several politicians. And the BaxiPartnership
(related to Baxi Boilers) has quietly been funding staff buyouts
of other household-name firms. The Employee
Ownership Association has a few pages of notes listing obscure
tax breaks and schemes for employees to buy shares in their companies
and in some cases they have borrowed money to buy companies that
then pay-back the loan. The more employee ownership there is,
the more easily this kind of thing can happen and there is a
list of obscure schemes linked to tax breaks by which employee
share holding could be encouraged.
10) Union rule books to be clear.
Clarity about the main services people say they want of a
union - help at work and legal help - are vital.
Paternal, discretionary services are not just quaint; they are
a deception. When an official passes on the message via a volunteer
that "you do not understand...", it is too late.
That is why people aim to have contracts in the rest of life.
To avoid clarity is simply wrong.
Another way to look at the same problem is to avoid hassle
for unions. If the usual standard of insurance contracts is set
by the Financial Services Authority, and unions are exempt while
a union-funded party is in government, it makes sense to show
the world that there's no need to be regulated in future: unions
can do just as good a job themselves and write contracts just
as clear. Or at
least be legal under current contract law. Current legal
interpretation of rule books is that they are not contracts but
the beginning of a tradition that can build-up over the years,
as the King v TGWU case shows
when compared to TGWU rule 10 about voting,
so it is almost impossible for a non lawyer to know what if anything
the rule book means.
11) Promote products of staff-owned companies.
This was a much-repeated objective in the quaint old T&G
rule book.
12) Doodle draft rule books - (rules2.html is an example) ready for any consulation
by others on changes
 Or in Unite T&G,
at least circulate and form opinions about the old one.
There is one
in the wings. There is a secretive old
one available for members who ask. Parts are really rather
lovely, and appeal to a much broader range of people than usual
sanitised stuff.
There is an attempt at a wiki community edited one at http://unite.wikidot.com/example-item-1
and maybe you can find a free wiki host to edit your own draft
with anyone you know who is interested. I don't know how to propose
a draft but presumably there will be a vote or a link on the
Unite-T&G website or something quite soon which will say
"everyone agrees with the new rule book (available on request)
don't they? Please submit 51 page drafts by tomorrow at 9am"
and silence will be assumed to be a yes unless there's a vote
and a lot of people are interested enough to vote no.
If you are good with online software you may find far better
ways of hosting a wiki rule book. This is a list of likely places
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_farms
Party politics is part of this. I discovered when subscribing
to TheyWorkForYou.com and seeing that
my pet issue had just been debated at Westminster without me
realising, and debated in a party political way. But to mention
party politics makes readers think that You Work For Them and
stop reading. Please read-on. If party politics makes you sick,
skip to Activist Wish List
and Bank Wish List below, or back
to the main index page.
1) MPs to criticise bad unions publicly - particularly
MPs who don't call themselves right of centre.
At the moment, only the DUP and Conservatives voted for Financial
Services Authority regulation of union legal services. The Liberal
Party changed spokesman and changed position just before the
vote, without reason. I had complained to my Liberal MP a month
before on this very point, and she had promised to keep me informed
if there were any committee meetings or regulations being passed
in Westminster. She didn't tell me the Legal Services Bill itself
was being passed or tell me why they voted with the Labour Party.
The Liberal leader at the time was Vincent Cable. Nobody asked
him on television why his party didn't seem interested in politics
and why MPs like mine seemed to be pretending to be local counsellors
in order to get in the local paper rather than doing work at
Westminster. At the time this was going through parliament, she
kept quiet about it which is a pity, because MPs get reported
a lot more than badly-treated trades union members.
This is a pity because although less than half of union members
are Labour voters, less than a quarter vote Conservative and
it is tricky for MPs who call themselves centre-right, aren't
union members and don't have a track record promoting employees
rights to try and reform trades unions[1].
I found this out by googling the people who voted against this
loophole and seeing what one or two of them had written. And
I found out about the loophole by ringing trading standards and
then the financial services authority to find out how my union
could behave as it did.
2) For votes at work.
According to Union Ideas Network, nobody has found a single
example in the world of a trades union taking over an employer
for the staff, or promoting a staff co-op. There are too-few
staff-owned companies; too many quangos and PLCs. It is these
- particularly quangos and the public sector - which spawn the
daily post of complaint forms to Employment Tribunals and makes
managers worry that everything has to be done by rigid procedure
to save being caught-out.
I guess that PLCs are just as bad to their staff but better at
finding smooth ways around the law. What shocks me about public
sector managers is what they think is normal in order to get
rid of trouble-makers, from time-wasting to cruelty to dishonesty.
It is a kind of game imposed on the other staff - just as mixed
in ability and just as short of ideas - who are doing the real
work. Staff are as likely to be eased-out of a job for being
a rival to the boss or for knowing too much than for being bad
at helping clients of public services.
I think that votes at work should go with votes online for
the union branch. Union votes and work votes don't have to be
enacted at the same time in the same law, but a politician who
supported both might be popular.
3) For votes to back political ideas with support
I don't think that union members should always tell Labour
MPs how to vote.
MPs have their own ideas and other constituents than trades unionists.
There is too little independent voting and MPs probably need
a union themselves.
But if union policies are a tradition of the party, I think
the system should be made to work as well as it can even if -
as one of the T&G political activists reported back to my
branch of his meeting with the Prime Minister's advisors
"the most that can be said is that we were politely
listened to".
I would like to know what union members think of this, that
or the other policy in directly-held online elections, particularly
about employment and company law where staff should have something
distinct to say.
I find the Labour movement baffling and have never been much
to do with it. I only started getting emails about labour politics
when I hooked-up to T&G branch committee 1/1148 in order
to complain to them and got Lambeth Labour Party politics back
instead. I've never voted Labour and only worked in Lambeth,
but it would have been interesting to read if it were not rather
one-diamensional and designed to attract support in disguise
rather than solve real problems.
As I understand it there is a whole hobbyist class of people
who sit in trades union committees or join the party as individuals.
They pass ideas up to a conference via a system in the party
for
"watering down motions and making sure that only the
most anodyne are passed, which ministers then ignore",
one of them said (my branch donates members' money to the
Campaign for Labour Party
Democracy and Labour
Representation Committee, listening to their speeches in
their time at meetings, despite avoiding democracy at the branch
itself. Unless you count being smug as democracy, but I think
that smugness is only part of it; being voted-in with a workable
system is the most important part).
At the same time, activists allow large amounts of money to
be sucked-out of their unions into a political party central
office, where presumably it is used to run a corporate alternative
of private focus groups, opinion pollsters, and ad campaigns
to find out what real people think and let them know that politicians
are in touch. The party central office is an expensive parallel
version of what traditional membership clubs first meant to do.
It is the office that helps party whips with party PR and reduces
the role of individual MPs. By subsidising a party, they decrease
their influence over it my strengthening the centre.
If the traditional union voting system worked, and included
marginal voters, the duplicate system could be cheaper; if non-labour
members in trades unions were allowed to cast individual votes
on the party's policies (rejected or not) then it would be a
much more interesting and attractive party, much more true to
its roots and much more photogenic. There is good television
in discussing which way a million teachers vote individually,
but not in showing the punch lines from a rousing speech at a
teachers' union conference by someone who has a bloc vote of
a million in his pocket.
4) The Representation of the People Act
This act sets strict limits
on what a local candidate is allowed to spend on a campaign after
the first mail-out.
It sets no limits on what the candidate's party central office
spends in order to shut her up and spin us a consistent party
line.
MPs tend to say - through gritted teeth - that central offices
do important and useful work which the public do not understand,
but which has to be funded one way or another. Until they say
what this work is, I don't believe them, and I doubt that they
do either
5) The Arms Race and Political Fund Opt-Outs
Politicians have described party funding as an "arms
race". They know better than me but and it sounds a good
description. As part of negotiations to end the arms race, I
would like to see unions forced to provide an online service
by which members could donate to political parties or charities
tax-free, but only if they choose the charities and political
parties individually. There should also be a duty for unions
to publicise an opt-out that exists for political funds now.
The party funding arms-race and the political-fund opt-out that
doesn't work are two separate points, but while a union-funded
party is in power I think they will only be dealt with together.
And I've just seen that an
attempt has failed.
6) Libel Law
Two of the recipients of union branch money were alternative
newspapers - Cab Trade News and Morning Star.
While googling, I discovered that the libel laws had closed Scallywag
magazine and persuaded a lot of the news trade not to touch political
hobbyist magazines again. Caravan World yes; Scallywag
no. This is a pity because one of the drains on union funds is
from activists who want their messages spread one way or another.
If they could sell more pamphlets and magazines commercially,
less would try entry-ism to union branches. I don't understand
how libel works but it needs sorting-out, on the internet as
well as for print publications.
7) Registries of charities, unions & trade associations,
limited companies, financial service providers, friendly societies
etc
These registers are part of a Victorian tradition set to make
organisations accountable, alongside the registers of births
deaths and marriages, the electoral roll and the land registry.
They made it easier for strangers to do business with each other
outside of networks of family and personal trust.
The modern equivalent of these registries is online, and a
policitician's first response to skullduggery in an organisation
should not always be that heavier regulators are needed; often
more transparency would do the same job for free. For example
Northern Rock registered headings of accounts at Companies House
as well as being regulated by the Financial Services Authority
and the Bank of England, but the detail of whether they had sold-on
tranches of mortgages or not is still opaque. It is hard for
a financial journalist to find-out. Likewise Unite and Transport
and General have free-to-download headline accounts at the Certification
Office, but they're in TIFF format and give no detail for people
like Ms King and King trying to find out about the cab trade
branch.
Names are hard to find too. The name of Halpin has got in the
news recently because of a story about inherited art treasures,
but the names of branch activists and the coincidence that they
are also activists for the Communist Party of Britain are not
so easy to track down on Google.
I propose
- preference for searchable documents, sent-in in word-processor
formats or as forms filled-in online
- Open Office spreadsheet templates available
- a transcription charge for firms that post or fax their account
The advantage of this would first be for financial researchers,
politicians and their research staff, and journalists:
- What is the average return on capital for a limited company?
- How many Friendly Societies are there?
- What sorts of firms call themselves Charities?
- What do Trades Unions spend money on?
Curious Googlers would benefit next by discovering things
earlier about where their pension fund is invested and names
of those involved. Oddfellows, Charities, Unions, Political Parties
and any other types of firm that account to registries would
be picked-up a little later by journalists, and I suspect that
the "Halpin" link would have been found for me long
before I really needed to know if there were better government
registries. Apparently this Halpin family was a big part of my
life without me knowing it. It is only now and too late that
I have discovered.
8) The Co-Operative Party and the Co-Operative movement.
This is a stooge movement, designed to raise money for Labour
and divert attention from the cause of employees owning their
firms. Job ownership was one of the main
objects of my Transport and General Workers Union according to
its rule book - potentially the most popular one - and it
is such a low priority now that you'd think they were trying
to strangle the idea at birth rather than foster it. In fact
we know they strangled the idea at birth because an influential
socialist in the 1930s, Beatrice Webb, wrote exactly what she
thought in a series of books. She began her career bossing the
poor about in the Salvation Army (I used to work in hostels so
I can be rude about them) and ended it writing "The Truth
About the Soviet Union" as though anyone was calling
her a liar. She didn't end her career by writing the book. Her
career ended because she got old and died. If she had carried-on
she would have written: - no I won't say. It would cause offence.
I've never read any of these books but know that in the middle
she tried to write co-operatives of employees out of the entire
labour co-operative thing, and her ghost still haunts the institutions
she helped set-up.
Not even Co-Operative Party MPs publicise the fact that there
is a Co-Operative Party. The party has no policies, except being
vaguely against worker co-operatives and in favour of busy-bodies,
smugness societies and steering committees like Hackney Community
Transport. It's alternative idea to worker co-operatives is that
consumers elect busybodies on an election turnout of [insert
figure here] to tell supermarket staff how to price beans. These
people's track record seems to be vaguely in favour of mergers
and of giving money to their "sister party", in
which they have been in coalition since formation in 1918. It's
a big sister, not a little sister, obviously.
The name Co-Operative and Co-Operative finance is used for raising
money for staff partnerships, but on such a small scale that
it nobody could decide to put their own savings into the shares,
and I'd want to question any trustee-investor about possible
kickbacks, after sacking them.
The origin of the fund is and attempt by Scott
Bader, a chemical company that works as a real co-operative,
to work with the Co-Operative movement in setting up an industrial
common ownership finance company in the 70s. At one point the
fund got a little taxpayer subsidy and at another point it was
such a little-known organisation that it was used as cover for
providing jobs to soviet spies - who turned out not to be good
investment managers.
Since that embarrassment you'd expect it to close or get back
to basics and specialise in investors and borrowers in the field
job ownership, just as early trades unionists were also interested
in setting-up building societies that lent real money to build
houses, or co-operative employers that really did things and
made things.
No.
The organisation muddles staff partnerships with "community projects"
- of which a few samples are quoted on the prospectus instead
of detail. The more voluntary-sector projects know that there
should be pictures of people smiling. Hackney Community Transport
provide a picture of a double-decker bus, but it isn't owned
by the drivers and staff but a "board of trustees made
up of co-opted industry experts and elected representatives of
our service users.".  Like
the joke of the Stagecoach T&G branch they have a steering
committee, but to them it is a boast, not a joke: they will do
anything to prevent industrial common ownership ownership of
the industrious, however many busybodies grant artists and ill-attended
evening meetings chaired by press officers it takes. On a scale
of one to ten where one is on the left and all about people controlling
their own jobs, and ten is on the right and slush-fund busybodies
controlling your job, Hackney Community Transport is ten out
of ten. It is to the right of Stagecoach.
Hackney Community Transport have got the same press officer
that Unite-T&G branch 1/1148 had, Fiyad Velmi. I didn't even
know I had a branch when she was press officer, but maybe the
world knew what she thought I thought. It's odd that a union
branch should have a press officer - unpaid I suppose although
some T&G branches employ staff - and it's even more odd that
a bus should have one. It's a fashionable job and often a disguise
for unpleasant work like telesales or chairing evening meetings,
but there must be some press office work if the job is called
press officer.
I'm quite middle class and prefer the tube but I think usually
bus companies display fanciful information on a notice board
attached to a post near where the bus sometimes stops and it
is called a "timetable". HCT is a big firm for
"mainstream bus routes, education transport for children
with disabilities, social services transport for older and disabled
people, yellow school bus services..." and then it trails
off. So they do buses and minicabs for the council, including
work done by volunteers maybe.
If you have time to run a bus company, get a grant from Hackney
Council, and organise cabs (maybe volunteer-driven) sto schools
and hospitals you don't have time for "a board of trustees
made up of co-opted industry experts and elected representatives
of service users" but the people involved probably try
their best at making it work before blaming passenger appathy
for low attendence at evening meetings and stitching things up
in some way: "is that you Mary? We're wondering of we
need a meeting this month or if we can all just agree. Yes I
thought so too. I'll put your point about cat poo in the minutes.
How is your cat? What was that about the million pounds? Don't
worry Mary it's all sorted. I'll speak to you next month".
Maybe Fyad Velmi the press officer has got more patience and
talant than I've mentioned. I paid her branch slush fund without
knowing it for years so she's not daft and she even had a job
for South East Regional TUC which got paid by my branch so she
must be good at slush-fund committees, if not at appropriate
sized buses and timetables. Oh I've lost the thread, which was
a bout a pitch to savers.
The pitch to savers looks like something to justify money
laundering:
"your honour: I invested the trust at zero interest for
reasons of conscience, not [accusation here]". "I
had no idea that as trustee I was invested in [insert slush
fund here]. The prospectus was vague"
Since that was written, another ICO investment, Ethnic
Mutual has been closed by the financial Services Authority
and a theme in reports of missing money is that the accomplices
know each other and know the world of grants and donations in
London politics.
Anyone who hoped that ICO Fund PLC would do what its name
suggests, and maximise a fund for industrial common ownership
would find their pitch sarcastic. If it ever got reported in
the financial pages it wouldn't be in the best-buy tables. The
investments of the fund are in a couple of dozen co-operatives
or not. Some are other organisations with a C in them like Community.
It might be one dozen organisations or two dozen; numbers are
being decided. Meanwhile the prospectus concentrates on feel-good
examples of hippy co-ops, but runs out after three (Radical Routes
tends to lend to them anyway) and then finds an advertising agency
made-up of professionals working as a partnership, as though
the idea had never been tried before. They lend cheap money to
an advertising agency. It's not unusual for add agents to work
as partners, but this ad agency, which is called Alpha
(good name innit) gives a discount to their sort of people. Maybe
they designed the dummy cheque made out to "friends of Tony
Woodly" for his election campaign or the cheesy graphics
for HCT
"The sickle shape suggests an open road, the C of
Community, and the U-turn of a lost bus".
If they were interested in productivity and thrift like early
labour activism they'd know that you can get free computers off
freecycle.org.uk and free open source software, but this bunch
of lenders have never heard of anything practical, as you'll
read in the last quoted paragraph.
Unlike normal shares,
ICO fund PLC's Co-Operative Shares are not
- designed to achieve capital growth or
- maximise returns.
This is simply not possible when lending at a fair
rate & seeking to create opportunity. [and give money
to the Labour Party] However, we have a target to pay annual
dividends in line with inflation ...to a
- maximum of 6% a year... and repay the shares in
full after 10 years ...ICO fund PLC will
- not guarantee to find a new person to purchase the shares
... but will maintain a register of persons interested in purchasing....ICO
Fund plc has
- not sought and is not seeking permission for its shares
to be listed on the Stock Exchange ... the trustees do
- not consider that the share value will appreciate ....Please
consider carefully the
- option to waive any dividend payment on your Co-operative
Shares.
Waived dividends will be held in a Guarantee Fund which,
at the discretion of the Trustees, will be used to provide guarantees
on particular advances. By this device we will be able to make
- a limited number of higher-risk investments in worthwhile
investments ...
Alpha Communication
is a design and editorial co-operative based in Durham that delivers
a range of marketing services to co-ops, social enterprises and
third-sector organisations. ICO Fund plc has recently helped
the co-op to purchase new IT hardware and software to enable
it to continue to deliver competitive services while trading
for social purpose... clients include .. co-operative and community
finance.
...and I haven't looked but the same councils that
hired Pollson as an architect seem to be hiring alpha for their
slush funds/
EquityIncentives.co.uk
put a different point of view by arguing that firms with high
employee ownership outperform the market. Their own Employee
Ownership index claims to show that the value of employee
owned businesses has grown faster than the FTSE index over long
periods. Government-backed researchers conclude that an overlap
of employee ownership and payment by results makes money.
Their press
release has a link to the long PDF download:
http://www.psi.org.uk/pdf/2007/fairsharecapitalism.pdf
Fair share capitalism is positively associated with labour
productivity.
Although FSC effects varied with the measure of labour productivity
used, results were fairly consistent across the three productivity
measures.
FSC effects differed by type of FSC scheme. Share ownership schemes
had the clearest positive association with productivity. However,
interactions between FSC schemes revealed that this positive
association was confined to instances in which share ownership
schemes were combined with profit-related pay or group payments-by-results
schemes.
In isolation, share ownership was associated with lower productivity,
as were PRP and group PBR in isolation.
No wonder another proper co-op, Baxi
Boilers, has started a separate trust fund unconnected with
Co-Operative finance to do the same job of investing in staff
buyouts and other real co-ops including Scott Bader have their
own pressure group for job ownership: "The Employee Ownership
Association is the voice of co-owned business in the UK",
it says on the JOL.org.uk web site.
9) The Money Laundering Regulations
(Northern Ireland):
These
don't exist but they could, and they could say that society
bank accounts must be public. Her Majesties Revenue and Customs
issues a 73 page
notice telling businesses and societies what to do, which
I haven't read. A tweak in the system to make Northern Ireland
banks and building societies reveal what they do with their money
would be easier than one in Scotland or England and Wales, and
a deadline could be set for as soon as bank software can be changed
- say a deadline of two years for the larger banks.
10) ACAS's arbitration
service for people who have sent forms to employment tribunals
could work better.
At the moment most litigants talk to each other or via ACAS
about money for compensation. I don't have statistics to show
this - just an an anecdote from an employer who was told by insurer's
lawyers "settle for £8,000" and then "if
we'd known she wasn't represented we wouldn't have advised settling
at all". This makes sense, so I suppose it is typical.
But if Union and No-Win-No-Fee lawyers are paid by winnings on
a tight budget, they are not going to say "and my client
is prepared to drop everything and help you, just so long as
you sack Mr Ramsey as manager of the kitchen". This
would not make sense to the lawyers but fits the motives of complainants
described in the Hammersley
research. I think that ACAS should have a legal duty to phone
the client and the lawyer, in case the client wants to settle
for something other than money.
11) The Trades Union and Labour Relations Act (or Possibly
the Employment Act now being discussed)
...should insist on proper votes as a condition of
a union being certified as independent, a condition which is
symbolic but important. Proper votes are members votes, not delegates
votes. Members are interested in efficiency and help at work,
rather than foreign policy and making donations. This is the
same as Union Wish List number eleven. Improper votes are votes
by a committee of five who say they represent the membership
because they got five votes for themselves in a dingy room one
night and act stridently at the biennial sector delegate conference
to ask for more money for whoever sent them - usually the Morning
Star newspaper. They also ask for senior union officials to have
opinions about foreign policy, rather than a good track record
in employment tribunals or a qualification.
12) The Cash back scheme for bank accounts which shouldn't
charge interest at source should be made easy to use.
It may be easy to use already - I've never been a society
treasurer who needs to find out - but societies of all kinds
ought to be able to get the same interest rates and use the same
bank accounts that individuals can use. At the moment it's hard
for them to stop anyone using an account in the person's own
name as a society account, but I guess it's not easy to stop
income tax being deducted from it.
This applies to unions who fund the Morning Star and will
some time have to make a decision whether to let it fold or plan
something more profitable. It also applies to all the activists,
staff and readers and supporters' groups.
- Volunteers to try advertising telesales
The accounts of the Morning
Star show a spirited paper struggling to act like a national
daily. They have hardly bought anything for the office for years
and will have trouble
hooking-up to the new computers at Newsfax printers. Circulation
is too small for a separate Scottish edition, now that high airmail
costs make it difficult to get papers there from the printers
in Kent. The paper's staff drive their own van. What they need
are tele-sales reps to sell advertising
space. What I understand from shops that sell alternative
products and services is that some of the magazines ring every
year or so with special advertising offers. The Morning Star
has never rung. It doesn't even have adverts on its web
site except trade union job adverts and doesn't list advertising
revenue on its accounts to members. Like many low-circulation
papers, it doesn't pay to have its circulation audited so Saachi
and Saachi probably don't ring very often. Meanwhile the
paper has an organised "fighting fund" and claims that
low add sales are caused by a buying boycott.
Advertising is the lifeblood of daily newspapers - and that lifeblood
is denied to this paper by business and by government alike -
for very understandable, if not forgivable reasons.
Cab Trade News, the paper for Transport and General
cab drivers, should try selling adverts too. The paper doesn't
even have a web site. If you want to subscribe or advertise to
cabbies, you would have to ring and ask for a sample copy.
Both papers might attract volunteers for a little tele sales.
It is a way of trying-out and proving yourself in a line of work,
and gives you the satisfaction of sending a sample copy to Trevor
in Sales and Giles at the agency.
- Give away newspapers
Metro and The London Paper charge lots
for adverts because they reach lots of commuters. They also
reach customers who never thought they would read celebrity gossip
or whatever is inside; this random reading is exactly what a
political activists seeks. One of the papers - Manchester
Evening News - has copies for sale in newsagents at the same
time that students are giving away copies to commuters at railway
stations, paid by video evidence of the number given.
- If profitable, make the paper a society of all subscribers
and staff as it was set-up to be and still claims to be.
It isn't. Society rules allow one vote per one pound share and
anyone can buy as many as they want.
- Online. If all respectable charities and political parties
put their accounts online it would be easier to spot the others.
- In detail about donations inwards and outwards.
- Ask organisations recieving the money to acknowledge it online
as well. A rule not to give to organisations that don't would
be a good rule for a union or a political party to have.
1) Offer club accounts where members can log-on to see
the statement
Most banks recognise clubs and societies as a small market,
in which the Co-Op probably has a large share. They have a Unity
Trust brand specifically for unions. The only distinctive thing
about these accounts is lower
interest than these,
even if you don't claim tax back on a personal account. Society
treasurers have a quaint habit of opening accounts in the society
name, to make it look as though it's safer there, which it isn't.
If you work for a bank that would like to get more of this market,
you should set-up an account where anyone can see the statement
without having to log-on. Elaborations could include free accounting
software, or free labelling of transactions by category.
2) Offer slow archive download of account information more
than a few months old,
so that treasurers who loose their statements can retrieve
the information at the end of the year and investigators who
find a fraud can trace it back for longer.
Union Democratic Agreements
...could be re-written with the word "democratic"
in them and specify that ballots are held online. Tough employers
have imposed deals like no-strike agreements on unions in exchange
for recognition according to the T&G,
while others have let feckless unions exist by default. One or
two employers even hire US-based consultants to try and contest
the recognition election in which a potential union has to win
40% of the votes. There is no need to pay the consultantcy fee.
A tough right-wing employer, just like a well-meaning liberal
one should insist on good democracy in any union it recommends
and advise its staff not to vote for a union that isn't democratic.
To tolerate feckless unions is a failure of duty of care. Existing
recognition agreements can surely be changed too, as far as local
branches of the recognised union go. After all, who would back
their branch committee against the right to be consulted? There
is a difficulty that most large unions are members of the TUC,
tend not to compete and so there will only be one union asking
for recognition which has no duty to do anything much - it might
not have local branches, it might not have a system or reps,
it might just be an opaque money laundering organisation but
most of them have some attempt at a local branch network of reps
and democracy.
Every-day members and reps have just the same duty to their
colleagues and breach it in just the same way by saying and doing
nothing.
Feckless unions, potentially, are far more expensive to manage
than democratic ones. There is the danger that events can turn
into a crisis such as a strike or a tribunal case which a good
union could have sorted-out earlier. Good unions should be free
sources of human resources advice to employers, saving some of
the costs of hiring human resources staff directly.
To prevent workplace bullying and get good ideas
Anyone who takes maternity leave, has been ill, or for some
reason doesn't fit-in with middle management needs to have two
lines of communication to the top of a work hierarchy.
The management line will always say that problems are caused
by the most junior person in the management line - even if this
person is a consultant surgeon and the next rank up is someone
prone to little fibs who can read and write but prefers not to,
as in the Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS? programme.
Some large organisations with staff handbooks have a "whistle
blowing procedure" which is as ridiculous as it sounds,
and that is why there are whistle blower discrimination cases
in employment tribunals. It is not an alternative to directors
walking the shop floor or some sensible system for consulting
staff that can be irreverent and rebellious but can also be also
democratic and efficient.
Some large organisations - specially in the public sector
- have union recognition agreements and there is requirement
to sign them in large firms if enough employees vote. The NHS
trust in the programme probably would have had a recognition
agreement with Unison. Would Unison pass a message up past the
management line? My guess from watching the programme is that
they had not done so for a long time.
If a firm is too large for anyone senior to go walkabout,
then maybe it would be better managed as a staff partnership
or at least have some sort of staff rep on the board or the trustees
or the governors or whatever. Some system of communication should
help directors avoid doing things that are expensive exhausting
and illegal, even if they are the biggest bastards in an organisation
and a system of communication helps them avoid these things.
Oddly enough, the same system of by-passing the management
line for complaints about bullying could be a way of getting
good ideas too. The same Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS?
programme showed about a dozen ideas, some badly thought-through
or ill-informed, held back from directors by middle management
and bogged down in committees and tactical avoidances. By the
end of the programme it was not clear whether a better way had
been found of carting patients through operating theatres, but
it was clear that the lid had been kept on ideas for a long time.
For PLCs to issue fewer new voting shares and issue free,
non-transferable, voting shares for staff.
These is legal. PLC managers could chip-away at the voting
rights of absentee investors until a problem crops-up, if it
does. Quite apart from anything else, this helps PLC directors
by reducing the chances of entry-ism by private equity financiers,
which seems very similar to the technique used by Communist Party
of Britain supporters to take over union branches and voluntary
organisations. Ideally there ought to have been organisations
trying to promote non-voting shares in staff-partnership companies
as a chart-topping form of investment. There have been attempts
to do this. Unfortunately the oldest one is taken over by something strange and bizarre but
not an attempt to capture the savings market.
For employers to look for parts of their business that
they could sell to the staff.
The Baxi Partnership
can advise on what's worked in the past and, like Industrial
Common Ownership Fund of Co-Operative Finance has money to
lend.
Footnote 1 / back:
Two MPs are trying. I got their names from They Work for You
debates and their web pages. They have produced a Labour
and the Trades Unions a free download published by the Centre
for Policy Studies, reviewed
here.
Contact
Employees.org.uk
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