Members' Money
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| The Milch Cow |
But all these years later I think the piece stands the test of time - and the behaviour of the GMB union is really no different to that of the RMT - because ordinary union members are treated as 'milch-cows' by union bosses and with a complete lack of respect, if you ask me.
Why else would affiliated GMB or RMT members be suddenly 'disaffiliated' - without any reference to the hundreds of thousands of individual union members involved?
Beats me.
Other People’s Money
In the good old bad old days, Labour party fund raising
was all about raffles, tombolas and race nights - innocent gatherings of
friends, supporters and fellow travellers whose many hands made the wheels of
local democracy go round.
How things have changed! Some pretend that New Labour
marked the break with the salad days of the past, as a new generation of snake
oil salesmen in sharp suits cosied up to tobacco kings and porn peddlers, as
potential sugar daddies. And this handy caricature is true up to a point, but
conceals a wider truth about the murky nature of raising money in old Labour
stomping grounds.
In Lanarkshire, Scottish Labour’s heart of darkness, known
criminals and drug dealers were pivotal figures in what became known as
‘Wishawgate’. A key figure was murdered soon after helping to boost the takings
of a Red Rose dinner to an impressive £25,000.
Underpinning large sums of cash sloshing about Motherwell
and Wishaw, were regular donations from
the ISTC trade union, with less than 50,000 members across the UK, and penny
numbers in the local area, especially after the closure of Ravenscraig. Yet,
this tiny union becomes a power broker by donating £5,000 to local party funds
in 1999 followed by £1,500 a year, paid in very convenient quarterly
instalments.
In total, £10,000 of union members’ money was ploughed
into Motherwell and Wishaw with ordinary ISTC members having no idea about what
was going on. But this, of course, is deliberate – union bosses carve up
constituencies across Scotland, which become ISTC or other strongholds,
concentrating power in the hands of the few (not the many) who are completely
unaccountable to local union members.
The system works by adopting and sponsoring MSP’s and
MP’s, often without rhyme or reason, which explains the odd couple relationship
between someone like Wendy Alexander (ex high-flying management consultant) and
the plodding transport workers union, TGWU. Other politicians acquired equally
unlikely affiliations with unions to which they never belonged as members
(Donald Dewar and the railway workers union, RMT) because the link is about
horse-trading and power.
For evidence, look no further than Jack McConnell’s
knife-edge contest to win the Motherwell and Wishaw selection contest for
Holyrood, where the ex-general secretary of Scottish Labour, arguably a figure
of some standing, was run to within one vote by Bill Tynan (now an
undistinguished MP, and formerly a bog standard official of the engineering
union, Amicus.
Trade unions put their money and influence behind union
candidates, in behind the scenes deals; the end result is people with small
minds and big prejudices emerging as key players, especially in areas like
Lanarkshire where talent and ability become secondary to union support. The
system creates a series of pacts turning many constituencies into local
fiefdoms: union muscle and money levers in favoured candidates from GMB, TGWU,
Amicus, Unison, RMT and so on.
Sponsored democracy is the name of the game, and the only
crime is getting caught. How crazy is a situation where 99% of GMB members pay
the trade union levy to the Labour party, when less than 1% are party members?
GMB members in Scotland vote the same way as the rest of the population – they
are as anyone else likely to vote for the SNP, Lib Dems, Scottish Socialists,
Greens and Tories.
In 2002, the RMT turned its army of 56,000 Labour party
levy payers into a rump of 10,000 souls. One minute 97% of RMT members (57,869
says the TUC) were paying part of their union dues to Labour, the next it was
cut to a mere 17%. Why decide overnight to affiliate 10,000 RMT members instead
of 56,000? No one knows, or no one will say.
But the crucial point is that not one of the 46,000
‘disappeared’ was asked before union bosses used their financial muscle to
influence the democratic process. The RMT leadership went on to divert the
members’ money to friendlier ‘left wing’ MP’s abandoning support for the likes
of Robin Cook and John Prescott, who resigned his 47-year RMT membership in
protest.
State funding of parties would bring about cultural shift,
not by throwing money at politicians, but by investing wisely in a new system
built on sound principles: transparency, integrity and a model of internal
democracy based on one member one vote. The state already spends huge sums on
political parties, through MSP and MP salaries and expenses. Whether the public
is getting value for money is a moot point.
A debate over state funding will produce some decidedly
strange bedfellows. So far, only two groups have declared ‘over my dead body’
opposition. The Tories, who talk about reconnecting with voters while
encouraging big business to finance the party from corporate profits. And union
bosses, who know their conscript armies of levy payers’ do not reflect the
political views of ordinary union members. In their separate ways, both are
equally dishonest and undemocratic.
State funding would be good for democracy because it would
make politicians clean up their act. A modest sum would be an investment in the
long-term and a transparent approach would gradually drive out hidden networks
and cosy deals. Put simply, modern state funding, effective regulation and a
cap on party spending has the potential to drive a stake through the heart of
Tammany Hall politics, for once and all.
Labour’s UK think tank, IPPR (Institute of Public Policy
Research), has proposed an interesting scheme that would restrict party
fundraising to voluntary donations, topped up by state funds on a pound for
pound basis. All monies raised would be open to public inspection and the key
role would fall to ordinary members and supporters – using other people’s money
for political aims would be outlawed.
Mark Irvine
November 2002
