Pulling strings (From The Argus)

I thought that we had decided that it was Lord Ashcroft who was funding the Tory Party.

If there is a point here it is that the taxpayer should fund the political parties so that the parties are not influenced by the source of their funding. The money spent should also be much less per election and the money should go to the constituencies and not to support the presidential style campaigns of the party leaders. We need to know about the candidates we are voting for not the party leaders.

Yes, well, it's not just the GMB. According to the Electoral Commission, Amicus, the Communications Workers Union, the Co-operative Party, UNISON and the MSF have made donations to the Brighton and Hove Labour parties totalling around £125,000. Recognise a pattern here? Just four people made donations and even one of those was a candidate.
At least the United & Cecil is a club made up of real people and not companies or unions. And according to the Electoral Commission, they've also made donations to Conservative parties in Bolton, Pendle and Great Yarmouth - not exactly Tory heartlands but up to them if they want to waste their money.

someone has to fund the parties teresa, and I do not want that coming out of my tax as well. anyone supporting political parties including the unions will obviously fund the party they think will best help their interests, so your point is?

oldmarket wrote:
Yes, well, it's not just the GMB. According to the Electoral Commission, Amicus, the Communications Workers Union, the Co-operative Party, UNISON and the MSF have made donations to the Brighton and Hove Labour parties totalling around £125,000. Recognise a pattern here? Just four people made donations and even one of those was a candidate. At least the United & Cecil is a club made up of real people and not companies or unions. And according to the Electoral Commission, they've also made donations to Conservative parties in Bolton, Pendle and Great Yarmouth - not exactly Tory heartlands but up to them if they want to waste their money.

What do you think unions are made up of if not real people!!?

The money that unions give to the Labour Party comes from contributions (separate from union subs) from ordinary members who choose to make that contribution.

One can question whether New Labour represents good value for these contributions as far as working in the interests of ordinary workers is concerned.

But it is not the same thing as donations from shadowy millionaires who don't even pay tax in this country, or corporations who don't even have to consult their shareholders before making political donations.

Andy R wrote:

oldmarket wrote:
Yes, well, it's not just the GMB. According to the Electoral Commission, Amicus, the Communications Workers Union, the Co-operative Party, UNISON and the MSF have made donations to the Brighton and Hove Labour parties totalling around £125,000. Recognise a pattern here? Just four people made donations and even one of those was a candidate. At least the United & Cecil is a club made up of real people and not companies or unions. And according to the Electoral Commission, they've also made donations to Conservative parties in Bolton, Pendle and Great Yarmouth - not exactly Tory heartlands but up to them if they want to waste their money.

What do you think unions are made up of if not real people!!?

The money that unions give to the Labour Party comes from contributions (separate from union subs) from ordinary members who choose to make that contribution.

One can question whether New Labour represents good value for these contributions as far as working in the interests of ordinary workers is concerned.

But it is not the same thing as donations from shadowy millionaires who don't even pay tax in this country, or corporations who don't even have to consult their shareholders before making political donations.

It's not quite as simple as that, as I suspect you well know. Most members of a union pay their dues through check-offs deducted from their pay. The check-offs contain the political levy. If you want to opt out of the levy, you have to write to both your employer and the union to tell them so. Most people won't and many won't even know that they can. It would be much better if people had to positively opt in to the fund. And I write as a former union rep.
And then there's the Union Learning Fund, set up by Labour in 1998, which has given more than £100 million to unions since then and the Union Modernisation Fund, which has handed out another £7 million since 2006, so the unions give with one political levy hand and are given with taxpayers' money on the other.
Comments?

Everyone who joins Unison has to opt into paying a political levy as part of the joining process and it has been this way since Unison was formed. Furthermore, all unions by law have to hold a ballot on whether to actually have a political fund every ten years. If a union's membership votes in favour of having one, members who don't want to pay it can still opt out very easily. I am a union rep and I am more than happy to explain to members how they can opt out of paying the political levy. If I was obstructive in this I would risk that person either not joining or leaving the union, which would be totally counter-productive.

The Union Learning Fund was established by the Government (not the Labour Party) to help unions to maximise opportunities for workers to get training and other learning which employers were failing to do. I'd be really interested to see if the Tories would actually seek to abolish it, since it would put the onus back on employers to provide these opportunities.

So...yeah....you're right....not quite as simple as that.

Thanks for your comments but you're making the point for me. It should be for people to opt in, not out. You obviously play scrupulously by the rules but that isn't the case in some other areas. It takes a very strong personality to opt out in a highly unionised workplace. Some would call this ensuring solidarity, others might give it another name. You are also absolutely right about the 10-year ballot but you don't mention the huge lobbying that goes on to ensure the right vote.
Again, you offer a perfectly lucid interpretation of the purposes of the Union Learning Fund but a cynic would argue that by the Labour government paying unions this money, this releases funds for other purposes. After all, one of a union's prime purposes is to maximise opportunities for its members. I'm all for maximising opportunities for everyone but one has to wonder why unions were chosen as the route to do so. Might there be a better one that is less open to question? And as for the Union Modernisation Fund, well lots of people think that many unions do, indeed, need modernising. Quite how this fund is going to do so is entirely another matter and it again lays unions open to the allegation that it allows them to use taxpayer funds to divert members' dues for other purposes.
There are good people in positions of power in some unions but equally there are many who are there purely for political purposes that have little to do with the well-being of their members.