Does it matter which union is the 'largest'?

Inter union rivalry has been a negative characteristic of British trade unionism for more than a century. The highly unionised teaching profession is strongly contested by 3 TUC affiliated unions and claims of the 'best', 'biggest' and 'largest' trade union feature on union websites and other communications. The NUT recently lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about an NASUWT job advertisement which included a claim to be 'the largest teachers' union in the UK'. The complaint was upheld and the NASUWT must not repeat the advert in its current form. The ASA has told the NASUWT to ensure it holds evidence to support such claims in future.
    A parallel situation arguably exists between Unite and UNISON with the former claiming to be 'Britain's biggest trade union' despite having 150,000 fewer paying members. But does size matter? The Con Dem Government seems to think so with Part 3 of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 bringing in a new statutory requirement for unions to submit a membership audit certificate (verified by an independent assurer) to the Certification Office each year. The pretext for this legislation was that unions 'should reflect the will of their members' but in reality it is about marginalising unions from public life. And faced with such hostile state interference maybe it's time for unions to end one-upmanship and place greater emphasis on trade union unity rather than making competitive claims more befitting of mobile phone firms and supermarket chains?
http://asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2015/1/NASUWT/SHP_ADJ_261873.aspx#.VNUtNlZFDIX

TTIP and the duplicity of the European elite

The Critical Thinking blog has published a useful update on Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). EU denials that ‘standards on consumer protection, on the environment, on data protection and on food are not up for negotiation’ are blatant lies. So too are purported assurances that the NHS is excluded from the scope of the proposed Treaty:
http://freecriticalthinking.org/daily-pickings/1047-ttip-update-status-and-resistance

TUC National Demonstration 18 October - Britain needs a pay rise (and shhh... Tories Out!)

The TUC is to organise a mass demonstration in London under the banner of Britain Needs a Pay Rise. It will take place on Saturday 18 October 2014, and will begin with a march through central London, culminating in a rally in Hyde Park. This will be the fourth march that the TUC has organised since the coalition came to power. Previous demonstrations - in support of alternatives to austerity, opposing cuts and in defence of the NHS - drew broad based support from local communities and service users as well as trade unionists. The narrower focus on pay of the 2014 demonstration (just 7 months before the 2015 General Election) will surprise many and arguably represents the first scalp of the Transparency of Lobbying etc Act which comes into force on 14 September and will make it illegal for ‘registered campaigners’ to spend more than £319,800 on seeking to ‘influence voting choice’ in the year before an election:
http://www.tuc.org.uk/about-tuc/britain-needs-pay-rise-%E2%80%93-tuc-mass-demonstration-autumn

Lobbyists welcome passing of Lobbying Bill while civil society mourns - but trade unions the real target

It seems the world’s turned upside down when professional lobbyists welcome yesterday’s passing of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill while charities and voluntary groups raise concerns at the refusal of the House of Lords to exclude them from its scope. However in truth the target of the legislation is neither the parasitic lobby industry nor the third sector but the trade union movement. This was confirmed by the Prime Minister himself in Parliament on 4 September last year ‘We all know what is going on—they do not want the trade unions brought within the law; they want the trade unions to go on spending millions after millions trying to alter an election campaign, rather than having them properly controlled by the law. That is what the lobbying Bill is about’ (Hansard, 4 September 2013).
Labour must make a priority of repealing this anti democratic, anti trade union law.
For more on the Lobbying Bill read here: http://unisonactive.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Lobbying

Stunning victory in New South Wales as Unions overturn political funding restrictions

Yesterday in New South Wales, Australia, the High Court upheld a union challenge to the Government's electoral donation laws. In February 2012, the O'Farrell led right wing Coalition Government amended the Electoral Funding Act, banning political donations from groups unless the donor is an individual enrolled to vote. Unions NSW launched a challenge to the laws, arguing that donations are a form of political freedom and that a ban is unconstitutional. This stunning victory gives hope to unions in Britain fighting a pincer movement to silence their collective voice – the Con Dem Lobbying Bill and the Labour Party’s Collins Review:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-18/high-court-rules-on-nsw-donation-laws/5163654
http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/judgment-summaries/2013/hca58-2013-12-18.pdf

Con Dems & Unions – Moving in for the Kill

After a two year onslaught on individual employment rights – extending qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims from one to two years, employment tribunal fees, shares-for-rights, weakening of redundancy protection, third party harassment and whistleblowing laws etc – the government’s decision to commission an inquiry into industrial disputes, led by a QC with a track record of acting against unions in landmark cases, is a declaration of war on trade unionism on a par with the worst excesses of Thatcherism.

No rhyme or reason to latest state intrusion on union autonomy in Britain

Yesterday the Lords inconclusively debated Part 3 of the Lobbying Bill – which if enacted will introduce statutory regulation of trade union membership records. Ahead of the debate former TUC General Secretary Lord Monks had demolished the ‘Coalition’s proposed union-bashing legislation’ in an article on the Labour Lords' website:
http://www.labourlords.org.uk/the-plot-thickens
  The Lords debate can be read here, with excellent contributions by John Monks and other former union leaders who now represent Labour in the second chamber. Man-of-the-people Viscount Younger of Leckie put the case for the proposed anti union legislation, citing the need for ’confidence in their (union) accountability to their members’, and Liberal Democrat Lord Tyler made a vicious contribution linking the government's proposals to the Collins Review of the union Labour link:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/hansard/lords/todays-lords-debates/read/unknown/276/

Act now to stop another anti union law getting on the Statute Book

An effective campaign of opposition to the Con Dem government's undemocratic proposals to restrict third party political expenditure has resulted in a pause and review of the related part 2 of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill. A consequence of this concession has led to part 3 of the legislation - which proposes state regulation of union membership records - being brought forward for consideration in the Lords from December to tomorrow, 11 November. A coalition of Peers was instrumental in forcing back the third party expenditure proposals and now the TUC is calling on trade unionists to 'adopt a Peer' to ensure that members of the second chamber of Parliament are aware that part 3 of the Bill is equally unacceptable and should be opposed:

http://www.goingtowork.org.uk/peers/?campaign=9

UNISON at the sharp end of Lobbying Bill political restrictions

In recent weeks there has been a belated but welcome realisation by a range of campaigning organisations from 38 Degrees to the TUC about the draconian implications of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill which gets its second reading in Parliament today. Much has been made about the lobbying bill restricting the ability of charities to campaign. But as the exemplary analysis by Professor Keith Ewing has highlighted, trade unions and the Labour Party are the target of the bill’s parliamentary draftsmen, with UNISON caught in the cross hairs:

TUC highlights draconian political restrictions in Transparency Bill

In a Guardian article today TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady is raising important concerns about restrictions on third party political expenditure in the Con Dem government’s Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning & Trade Union Administration Bill. This belated warning about the anti democratic and draconian implications of the proposed legislation makes good its omission from the TUC reaction to the Bill when it was first published. However less understandable is the comment by Frances that ‘I do not believe that the Lib Dems could knowingly have signed up to such illiberal proposals.’

The UK's newest anti union law explained

A superb dissection of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill by Thompsons Solicitors who conclude that this proposed anti union law, which is being fast tracked through parliament, is 'contrary to international law and a serious infringement of the legitimate rights of millions of citizens'
http://www.thompsonstradeunionlaw.co.uk/information-and-resources/transparency-lobbying-non-party-campaigning-union-administration-bill.htm

Latest anti union law unparalleled in its ideological venom

The UK's latest anti trade union law - the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trades Union Administration Bill - in its ideological venom exceeds the worst of the measures introduced during the Thatcher era, according to Victoria Philips of Thompsons Solicitors. 'The detail of the proposed reforms is complex – annual membership audits, new Certification Officer powers, enforcement orders, a requirement for unions with over 10,000 members to appoint an assurer, self-certification for smaller unions and exemption for new unions. It’s the very opposite of the Red Tape Challenge. Oh what a laugh they must have had in Cabinet with that one.'
http://www.unionhome.org.uk/?p=2676&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=an-outrageous-attack-on-the-largest-democratic-movement-in-this-country

New ways of doing politics - Spot the difference

Coalition Agreement 12 May 2010 ‘We will regulate lobbying through introducing a statutory register of lobbyists and ensuring greater transparency. We will also pursue a detailed agreement on limiting donations and reforming party funding in order to remove big money from politics’

Ed Miliband 22 July 2013
‘We want to open up our policy-making, clean up the lobbying industry and take the big money out of politics’.

Con Dem Lobbying Bill is a ‘cheap, partisan attack’ on unions as well as Labour

Labour MP Angela Eagle, the shadow leader of the Commons, said yesterday that the new Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trades Union Administration Bill has been designed to ‘divert attention away from allegations the Conservatives had offered dinners for party donors in Downing Street’ and is ‘cheap, partisan attack on Labour funding.’ These points are true and reflect current Westminster preoccupations, but worse than both is the attempt to remove trade unions from politics by severely limiting political fund expenditure in the full year leading up to a General Election:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/house-of-commons-23355888

New lobbying laws will muzzle unions during General Elections

The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning & Trade Union Administration Bill was published yesterday and contains two significant anti union measures - a draconian restriction on trade union political expenditure as well as imposing new administrative demands on unions.

Plan to restrict union political funding 'a de facto ban on electoral free speech'

The government’s recent announcement on lobbying was soiled by its unexpected inclusion of an attack on trade union support for the Labour Party, writes Keith Ewing. Apparently the government is proposing that any money spent by an affiliated union campaigning at an election is to be treated as not as a ‘third party expenditure’ as at present, but as an expenditure by the Party for the purposes of electoral law. It will also count towards the Party’s electoral spending limit.

The other 'occupy' movement - how corporate lobbyists have hijacked British politics

A Guardian analysis of links between government and corporations as well as a FT report on attendance at this year's conferences of the 3 main political parties shows beyond doubt that politics in Britain no longer serves citizens and party members but is a domain dominated by the vested interests of big business and its hireling politicians:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/
datablog/2011/oct/16/links-government-
data-business-data?CMP=twt_gu

Now is the Time to Grab Hearts and Minds

The great issue in the trade union world that we live in at the moment is the issue of our pensions. There is little doubt that the only way that we will influence our main foe in this fight is by taking strike action against the Tory Government.