Political Fund - YES Lousy Pay Proposals - NO

‎I've been busy balloting over recent days and have neglected this poor blog.

UNISON's pay consultation procedure in local government requires a lot of effort from branches who want to maximise member participation.

Although it's tempting for a harassed branch activist to wish that the national union would take on all this effort and expense, that would‎ hardly be a positive move.

Even now, with consultation in the hands of branches, some of our officials see it as their job to "sell" a national position. 

Good luck with that. Even with a major discount I can't see many people wanting to buy shameless, spineless equivocation.

One thing which makes it even more fun distributing pay ballots to branch members at the moment is explaining that this isn't the same ballot for which they have just received a paper at home.

That is the decennial ‎ballot to retain our political fund - and for that we desperately need a "YES". 

Among the many increasingly unreasonable legal restrictions place upon UK trade unions over the past thirty years is the requirement to ballot our members every ten years if we wish to retain a political fund, and therefore the right to make political donations and spend funds on political campaigning.

No such requirement is imposed upon private corporations, which have the unfettered right to use any of the profits they make from their workforce or their customers for any political purpose they wish.

Because the interests of our members extend beyond the immediate workplace, and can never therefore be advanced, promoted and defended through workplace organising alone, trade unions require a political voice.

We have - and will continue to have - debate and disagreement about how we use our political fund. We might even question why we couldn't remove this legal restriction (or many others) during thirteen years of government by the Party to which we are affiliated.

However, we must have a political voice, and therefore a political fund. 

Vote YES to a political fund (but no thank you to a lousy pay deal!)

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.