Labour Fudge
Ed Miliband's plans to forge a new relationship between the Labour Party and the trade unions suffered something of a setback the other day - with the publication of an 'interim report' which suggests that the influence wielded by union bosses might well be unaffected by democratic reforms covering political donations.
Ed Miliband says he does not want to accept donations from union members unless people have made a conscious decision to give some of their heard earned cash to the Labour Party - in effect an 'opting in' system which stands the present political levy on its head.
Now, logically speaking, the impact of this new arrangement is that the trade unions role inside the Labour Party also has to change - because if ordinary union members are speaking directly for themselves, then it is clearly daft for union leaders to control 50% of the votes at the party's annual conference, for example.
If and when OMOV (One Member One Vote) becomes the norm inside the Labour Party, then the case for the trade unions to have special treatment simply disappears - including the electoral college by which Labour elects its leaders with one third of its total votes being reserved for the trade unions.
Yet the interim report which is being carried out by Lord Collins - a former union boss himself - comes up with a cunning plan that would deal only with member donations and kick all the other 'knock on' changes into the long grass.
In which case a small handful of union bosses will continue to enjoy special privileges and influence inside the Labour Party - while having to concede that their ability to speak with any legitimacy on behalf of ordinary union members - has been substantially reduced.
To illustrate this point, the GMB plans to affiliate only 50,000 members in 2014 - down from 420,000 in 2013 - out of a total union membership of 650,000.
So what gives the GMB general secretary - Paul Kenny - or Len McCluskey (Unite) or Dave Prentis (Unison) the right to throw their weight around inside the Labour Party if so few of their members are willing to 'opt in' to the new arrangements as Labour Party supporters?
The GMB union has consulted its 650,000 members and concluded that very few of them wish to donate some of their hard earned cash to the Labour Party.
The result is that from January 2014 the GMB will affiliate only 50,000 of its 650,00 members (7.69% of the total) - instead of the 420,000 members that the union has been affiliating up until now.
So, at a stroke 370,000 affiliated members have disappeared and the percentage total has dropped from 64.52% of the total membership - to a mere 7.69%.
The GMB's decision was taken by its central executive council (CEC) which has 65 members and will cut the union's regular funding to Labour from £1.2 million to £150,000 a year in affiliation fees - a cut of over £1 million.
Yet the incredible thing is that the GMB does not appear to have any plans to return this £1 million to the members from whom the money was raised.
Which I find very odd - because if the money was raised to pay for a political affiliation to Labour and is not being used for that purpose - surely the money should go back to the individual members involved?
Now this is all part of the build-up to the annual TUC conference next week and the unions are just indulging in a bit of good old-fashioned arm twisting - in advance of Ed Miliband's plans to reform relations between Labour and the unions.
But it will be a strange reform that allows unions bosses to hold on to millions of pounds of their members' money - and spend it as they like - without having to hand any of it back to the people to whom it really belongs.
So what gives the GMB general secretary - Paul Kenny - or Len McCluskey (Unite) or Dave Prentis (Unison) the right to throw their weight around inside the Labour Party if so few of their members are willing to 'opt in' to the new arrangements as Labour Party supporters?
Other People's Money (5 September 2013)
The GMB union has consulted its 650,000 members and concluded that very few of them wish to donate some of their hard earned cash to the Labour Party.
The result is that from January 2014 the GMB will affiliate only 50,000 of its 650,00 members (7.69% of the total) - instead of the 420,000 members that the union has been affiliating up until now.
So, at a stroke 370,000 affiliated members have disappeared and the percentage total has dropped from 64.52% of the total membership - to a mere 7.69%.
The GMB's decision was taken by its central executive council (CEC) which has 65 members and will cut the union's regular funding to Labour from £1.2 million to £150,000 a year in affiliation fees - a cut of over £1 million.
Yet the incredible thing is that the GMB does not appear to have any plans to return this £1 million to the members from whom the money was raised.
Which I find very odd - because if the money was raised to pay for a political affiliation to Labour and is not being used for that purpose - surely the money should go back to the individual members involved?
Now this is all part of the build-up to the annual TUC conference next week and the unions are just indulging in a bit of good old-fashioned arm twisting - in advance of Ed Miliband's plans to reform relations between Labour and the unions.
But it will be a strange reform that allows unions bosses to hold on to millions of pounds of their members' money - and spend it as they like - without having to hand any of it back to the people to whom it really belongs.
