NLC Union Membership

I submitted a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to North Lanarkshire Council recently about the total number of council employees and the number of people who pay their union contributions by what is known as 'deduction at source' (DAS). 

Here's what the Council had to say in its reply:

• North Lanarkshire Council employee approximately 17,300 employees.
• 7,421 employees pay union contributions through the reduction (sic) at source.
• 5,526 employees use deduction at source to pay their union contributions to Unison.
• 1,032 employees use deduction at source to pay their union contributions to GMB.
• 1,688 employees use deduction at source to pay their union contributions to Unite.

Now almost all union members pay their union contributions by DAS these days and only penny numbers do so by other means such as direct debit.

So what the answer to my FoI request means is that only 43% of the NLC workforce are members of a trade union, i.e. 7421 employees out of 17300.

Which is an amazingly low figure if you ask me, because it means that the trade unions speak on behalf of a minority of the workforce.

I suspect this is partly due to the way trade unions have behaved over equal pay in parts of the country where they have not done the right thing by low paid women workers.