Independent Referee (03/04/14)

If my email post box is anything to go by, there are lots of union members out there who are completely fed up at the way their trade unions have behaved over equal pay.

Now unlike lots of other areas of public life, trade unions are not regulated effectively - so while people can complain about teachers, doctors, lawyers, property managers, the BBC, the energy industry etc etc, it's not possible for union members to raise a 'service' complaint  other than with their own trade union.

So the union becomes judge and jury in its own cause which stinks to high heaven if you ask me, especially as unions support independent regulation everywhere else in society. 

Here's an article from Time Times which reports on an inquiry by the Certification Officer into  alleged 'phantom voters' in the election of Unite's general secretary, Len McCluskey.

But the problem is that the Certification Officer has very limited powers over union elections and the registration of certain information on how unions are organised - there is no wider or general ability to consider complaints from ordinary members that they have been let down or badly served by their trade unions.

To my mind that's wrong and just like the banks or the press and many other areas of public life, trade union members ought to have access to an independent referee, if and when they believe things have gone badly wrong - and the union won't put things right itself.