Strange Connections

Here's an article I wrote for one of the newspapers more than a decade ago which highlights some very odd goings on within the RMT trade union - and the union's unusual relationship with Scotland's first First Minister, Donald Dewar.

Quite why a former solicitor would want to become a member of the NUR/RMT is a mystery to me - just as I am mystified, as I said in a previous post, that other Labour MSPs and MPs belong to not just one, but two different unions at the same time.

When I was younger and beginning to think about getting a job, I remember people telling me - It's not what you know, but who you know' - as if a network of 'contacts' was the way to ensure that you got on in life. 

So who knows, maybe they were right - because a lot of these Labour/union links look very contrived.   

‘Beeching Axe’ will backfire on union barons  

Donald Dewar must have been birlin’ in his grave, as old comrades from the RMT (Rail Maritime and Transport) union announced swingeing cuts in the number of members affiliated to the Labour Party every year. Taking a Beeching-style axe to the Labour-union link, Bob Crow, RMT’ s new leader, declared that its previous affiliation of 56,000 members would be slashed to the bone

So, literally, overnight a mighty army of 56,000 RMT levy payers became a bedraggled rump of only 10,000 souls. One minute 97% of the total membership (57,869 according to the TUC) is happily paying part of their union dues to the Labour Party, the next it’s down to a miserly 17%.

Why 10,000? No one knows, but not one of the 56,000 union members involved will have been asked what they think, individually, before union bosses use them as canon fodder in a battle over who runs the Labour Party.

The truth is that very few trade union members are also individual members of the Labour Party, yet crazy, unbelievable numbers support it financially. Why? Because a legal but dishonest scam top slices small sums from their union dues every week, 15 or 20 pence, which union bosses are then free to spend as they wish from a political levy fund.

Union members have no idea how the political levy operates, few appreciate that the system is quite different and fairer in Northern Ireland, for example, where people have consciously to opt in to the system, instead of opting out as is the case in the rest of the UK.

Most members fail to understand that their union dues allow union bosses to dispense political largesse, which is hardly surprising since the system is the opposite of open and transparent. Once you’ve joined it’s harder to leave than the Mafia; witness the following extract from one union rulebook –

           

            4.1 A member of the union may at any time give notice on the form of exemption referred to in J.4.2 below, or by a written request to like effect that she/he objects to contribute to the Political Fund. A form of exemption notice may be obtained by, or on behalf of, any member either by application at, or by post from, the Head Office or any branch office of the union…………………..”

4.4 – on giving such notice a member of the union shall be exempt, so long as her/his notice is not withdrawn, from contributing to the Political Fund of the union as from the 1^st day of January next after the notice is given, or, in the case of a notice given within one month after the notice given to members under Rule J.3 hereof or the date on which a new member admitted to the union is supplied with a copy of these rules under rule J.4.11 hereof, as from the date on which the member is given.”

           

This gobbledygook could be in Latin for all the sense it makes to the average union member, but that is exactly the point. Thousands of people every week, many part-time and low paid, hand money over to a party they never vote for at local or national elections. Most members pay the political levy unknowingly and unwittingly, duped by their own organisations without the faintest clue about what’s going on.

Union bosses then use these enormous sums of money (£100 million in the past 20 years) to buy influence within the Labour Party, at party conference, for example, where unions collectively still control 49% of the votes. Lately, leaders like John Edmonds of the GMB have flexed their muscles by withdrawing funds from Labour over the continued use of private finance in public services; individual politicians are now being targeted as well.

Of course, what comes down can go back up just as easily, since this is about power not principles. If the RMT gets the call from Number 10, the missing 46,000 former Labour levy payers could be reinstated as quickly as they were ’disappeared’ by the union leadership, and hardly anyone would notice the breathtaking arrogance involved. £700,000 would be restored to Labour coffers over the next five years and everyone would live happily ever after.          

Except, of course, that it would be completely wrong and undemocratic. The political levy system in the UK (Northern Ireland excepted) is built on the lie that most union members support the Labour Party. Yet union members are no different to anyone else; random selections of union members show the same broad voting patterns as the rest of the population. Internal union surveys have confirmed this point consistently over the years, but are never published, for obvious reasons. 

So, in the end we have the perfect, if ugly, symmetry of Bernie Ecclestone trying to influence Labour policy by offering to donate £1 million to party funds, while Bob Crow of the RMT, John Edmonds of the GMB and Billy Hayes of the CWU are withholding their millions (most of it ill gotten arguably) unless union bosses get their way.            

Health secretary, Allan Milburn, a former union official himself with MSF, stepped into the row insisting that Labour would not be pushed around by bullying tactics; ‘fairness not favours’ would remain the government’s maxim for doing business with the unions, he said.     

A generation ago, this sort of political shenanigans was justified in the context of a class war and the battle for supremacy between capital and labour. Times have changed; the Labour Party has moved on and the world is a different place, but union bosses still indulge the fantasy that they represent the party political views of their members. State funding will bring a well-deserved end to a system based on manipulation. 

Donald Dewar was not your typical RMT member, by the way. He was a solicitor by profession, yet found the railway workers union, (the NUR at the time), willing to adopt and sponsor him as one of their own, even though he never met the essential membership requirement of being a railway worker.

Sadly, if he were still with us, Donald would now be out on his ear, not for breaking union rules, but for refusing to swear loyalty to the policies of the RMT. Old sea dog and deputy prime minister, John Prescott was so incensed at the witch-hunt atmosphere brewing inside the union that he has resigned his 47-year RMT membership in protest.

After years of suppressed fury, union bosses are finally set on a collision course with Labour, but they are bound to lose because they are fighting without the moral authority of ordinary members. 

  

Mark A. Irvine

June 2002

Useful Connections (4 November 2013)

Why is Johann Lamont (Labour's Scottish leader) a member of Unite? - is a question I've been asking myself over the past few days.

Now it's not such a weird thing to ponder as readers might think - because according to the Register of Interests at the Scottish Parliament - Johann is also a member of the EIS which is Scotland largest teaching trade union (Educational Institute of Scotland).

Which is understandable because Johann Lamont was a teacher before she became an MSP back in 1999 and - who knows - maybe Johann will return to the classroom when her political career comes to an end.

Another reason that Johann's membership of the EIS is not unusual is that many MSPs and MPs - if they were a member of a particular trade union before entering politics, retain that connection once they get elected to parliament at Holyrood and/or Westminster.

Maybe this comes down to nostalgia, but whatever the reason it doesn't raise many eyebrows or do anyone visible harm.

So, so what? - in other words.

But what I don't get is why would someone want to join a second trade union - one which they've had no connection with previously, especially if their membership looks completely contrived and artificial which is how things look to me in terms of Johann Lamont and Unite.

I should say that Johann is not the first Labour MSP or MP to look like a 'fish out of water' when it comes to her choice of trade union - because Scotland's first First Minister (Donald Dewar) was a member of what is now the RMT (Rail Marine and Transport) union even though Donald was a solicitor by profession which always struck me as crazy.

Anyway, back to Johann who like the UK Labour leader, Ed Miliband, owes her victory in the leadership ballot to trade union votes as the following post from the blog site archive shows.

And having looked up the Register of Interests for Ken Macintosh MSP - who was the victor and vanquished at one and the same time - I can report that Ken was not a member of Unite, the trade union.

Funny that.

Labour Loser Wins Again (18 December 2013)

The new leader of the Scottish Labour party - Johann Lamont - has not been elected by individual Labour party members.

In the individual member section of Labour's barmy electoral college - the votes cast were as follows:

Tom Harris - 3.444%
Johann Lamont - 12.183%
Ken Macintosh - 17.707%

Total - 33.33%

Now the reason that the total adds up to 33.33% instead of 100% - is that party members have only one-third of the votes - which sounds completely bonkers because it is completely bonkers.

But in most other political parties this would have produced the following result:

Tom Harris - 10%
Joahann Lamont - 37%
Ken Macintosh - 53%

Total - 100%

So Ken Macintosh won an overall majority in the ballot of individual Labour party members in Scotland - of whom there are less than 20,000 these days.

And no wonder because they don't even get to elect their own leader.

In the Alice in Wonderland world of the Labour party two more sections of the 'electoral college' come into play - one for parliamentarians (MSPs and MPs) and the other for trade unions.

So out of the total number of ballot papers sent out - well over 300,000 according to Labour - less than 20,000 are for individual Labour party members - 100 or so are for MSPs and MPs - and around 300,000 are for non-Labour party members in the trade unions.

Which means that 20,000 votes - has the same value as 100 votes - has the same value as 300,000 votes - or to put it plainly some votes in the Labour party are much more equal than others.

Not everyone votes of course which distorts the picture even further - but the turnout figures have still to be released for each section - and will make interesting reading at some point.

Ironically, Labour's new deputy leader in Scotland - Anas Sarwar - has been elected by ordinary party members who voted for him by a majority of 61% - despite a trade union campaign to elect one of his rivals.

So Scottish Labour has ended up in exactly the same position as the UK Labour party - they have a new leader - but one who has been rejected by ordinary party members.