Compulsory Redundancies
By all accounts Ed Miliband's plan to forge a new relationship between the Labour Party and the trade unions has hit a few bumps in the road.
The implications of the new 'opting in' arrangements - which would mean that affiliated union members become full Labour Party members - is a weakening of union power and a decisive move in favour of One Member One Vote (OMOV).
So, goodbye to Labour's crazy electoral college (which gives union activists one third of the votes in leadership elections) - farewell to the union reserved seats on important decision making bodies such as the national executive - and arrivederci to the 50% of votes that the trade unions control at Labour's annual conference.
Except that these changes are all being set aside, for the moment at least, with the aim of placating the bosses of the big three unions - Len McCluskey (Unite), Paul Kenny (GMB) and Dave Prentis (Unison) - who all stand to be made 'redundant' under new democratic arrangements in which ordinary union members speak directly for themselves.
Which explains why the big three unions are working hard behind the scenes to prevent these changes from ever being put in place.
The implications of the new 'opting in' arrangements - which would mean that affiliated union members become full Labour Party members - is a weakening of union power and a decisive move in favour of One Member One Vote (OMOV).
So, goodbye to Labour's crazy electoral college (which gives union activists one third of the votes in leadership elections) - farewell to the union reserved seats on important decision making bodies such as the national executive - and arrivederci to the 50% of votes that the trade unions control at Labour's annual conference.
Except that these changes are all being set aside, for the moment at least, with the aim of placating the bosses of the big three unions - Len McCluskey (Unite), Paul Kenny (GMB) and Dave Prentis (Unison) - who all stand to be made 'redundant' under new democratic arrangements in which ordinary union members speak directly for themselves.
Which explains why the big three unions are working hard behind the scenes to prevent these changes from ever being put in place.
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| Peter Brookes - The Times |
