Yesterday, in the tenth
and final sitting of the Committee stage of the Trade Union Bill in the House
of Commons, the new clause seeking to eliminate “check-off” arrangements
for the payment of unions subscriptions was formally added to the various other
vicious proposals to obstruct strike action, neutralise trade union political
campaigning and generally hobble our movement.
Interestingly, the Minister suggested that, whereas trade
unions are going to be given only three months to get each member currently
paying the political levy to sign a consent form to be able to continue paying,
we will have a generous (?) six months in which to transfer members who pay
their subscriptions from their wages or salaries on to direct debit.
The Bill will now proceed to its third reading in the
House of Commons after which it will have to be considered in the House of
Lords before receiving Royal Assent. Whilst we must now focus our attention on lobbying
against the Bill, we need also to give serious thought to how we will
handle both the massive administrative tasks which the enactment of this vile
legislation would set before us.
One of our sister unions (or as officials sometimes say “competitor
unions”) has already launched a mobile app
with a facility to switch members to Direct Debit payment of subscriptions.
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