http://www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/18617.pdf A working group of NEC and regional representatives is overseeing the review and will make recommendations to the NEC in early 2010. The NEC will report to NDC in June 2010.
To some extent the gravity of the economic and political situation and the challenges facing branches may make the timing of the review appear self indulgent. However motion 63 at the 2008 NDC called for a full review to ‘scrutinise and reform operations and functional processes to ensure the highest levels of transparency, participationand activity and report to conference on this.
In the context of the (then) prominent debate on the funding of political parties the NEC was instructed to ‘continue to campaign to ensure that the voices and opinions of trade unionists are allowed to continue to make a valid and necessary contribution to political debate'.
UNISON’s political fund – with its general political fund section and Labour link affiliated political fund section - remains unique in the British trade union movement. It offers member choice and political flexibility without equal. The membership split between the two funds is approximately 850,000 (GPF) and 450,000 (APF) and has remained fairly constant in recent years.
The opt-out rate from the UNISON political fund is barely 1% compared to an average of 10% in other unions with political funds. And when UNISON members have been consulted on the existence of the fund, in statutory political fund review ballots, the verdict has been an overwhelming YES. 78% endorsed the funds in 1995 and this rose to 85% in 2005 (out of approx 300,000 members who voted only 43,000 voted to scrap the fund).
This was one of the highest mandates of all UK unions and was achieved despite a sectarian and unprincipled NO campaign by individuals acting inside the union on behalf of the socalled ‘Socialist’ Party (which, it should not be forgotten, was prepared to silence the political voice of UNISON as a price worth paying for breaking the Labour link).
During the Hayden Phillips review of the funding of political parties the trade union affiliation to Labour came under close scrutiny. The UNISON political fund was held to be exemplary by the Unlock Democracy pressure group which stated in a letter to the Guardian on 7 June 2007 ‘UNISON is much more transparent and has not stopped the union from remaining one of the main funders of the Labour Party’. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/jun/07/tradeunions.comment
The review consultation document poses wide ranging questions about the political context and the future operation of the fund. UNISONActive will examine each question in turn. The views of UNISONActive readers on the political fund review are invited for publication. Please click here to submit views.
Click here for more Political Fund views