Sep 2010 05

New TPA Research: Taxpayers fund trade unions to the tune of £85 million a year12

Click here to read the full report

Public sector trade unions are preparing to fight spending cuts and threatening strikes, and they are doing so with the help of taxpayers' money. The TaxPayers' Alliance have, for the first time, calculated the value of the direct grants and paid time off that unions are receiving.

Key findings:

- Trade unions received £85.8 million from public sector organisations in 2009-10
- This sum is made up of £18.3 million in direct payments from public sector organisations and an estimated £67.5 million in paid staff time.
- The total is up 14 per cent from 2008-09, when trade unions received £76.1 million from public sector organisations.
- 2,493 full time equivalent public sector employees worked for trade unions at the taxpayers' expense in 2009-10.

This new research was compiled by sending Freedom of Information requests to more than 1,200 of public sector organisations, including fire authorities, quangos, councils, NHS Trusts, ambulance and fire services. There is a full breakdown of all these figures in the report, revealing the estimated value of the paid time off that union staff are getting in each organisation, in each local area.

Click here to read the full report

Matthew Sinclair, Director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said:

"Trade unions are lining up to fight vital cuts in public spending and threatening strikes that could cause massive disruption for ordinary families. By financing their other work, like representing and recruiting members, taxpayers' money frees up union funds for political contributions and expensive campaigns. If big, rich, public sector unions are going to take an active political role, there is no way they should be getting taxpayers' money."

Jennifer Dunn, Policy Analyst at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said:

"Taxpayers expect their money to be spent providing services, not propping up unions fighting for their own interest. Public sector employees should be working for the public and not representing trade unions, whose agenda threatens to jeopardise public services. The unions should not be given special treatment and should pay for their own representatives and programmes."

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  • Mark

    This is a weak piece of research. It is not balanced, but a crude ideological driven report with an agenda against trade unions. It lacks an understanding of why trade unions exist and what they do. It contains explict inaccuracies and there is evidently no attempt made to reference other studies and evaluations of some of the funding schemes referenced. For example, you call for the Union Modernisation Fund to be scrapped, yet it only had three rounds anyway. Also, you say this Fund takes public money to subsidise recruitment, yet it does not. Also, you shoudl state that all this funding has to be match funded by unions themselves. Recruitment was specifically disallowed under the funding structures. Many other points could be made. Essentially, you should be honest and say that you do not think trade unions should have a role in the workplace and that workers should not have a right to representation at work. Trade union representatives at the workplace do indeed get paid time off to perform their roles, but much of this work is done on their own time too (again, there is government published research on this). Typically, reps perform a service that helps workers at work and in doing so enhance their ability to perform effectively. In other words it can contribute to public service improvments. Balanced research would have contributed the net contribution of this.
    There is no indication on your site, who your donors are?

  • M. Stuart

    What is wrong with trade unions getting public support to perform their role. Their role contributes to improving the working lives of millions of people. Their role contributes to justice, equality and democracy. Standards of public service is key to the trade union agenda. They look to provide opportunties for people to learn or to enhance their careers or to maintain a decent standard of living. They campaign for health and safety standards at work. Far more money from the public purse is passed on to employer organisations (who have just had their tax rate cut), whose sole interest is to make a profit that benefits the few, often at the expense of workers’ jobs, pay, standards and health and safety.

  • Gary Smith

    I agree with the previous comments. The TPA is presenting cheap and tacky right wing propaganda as ‘research’.
    The TPA is a thoroughly disgusting and duplicitous organization. We do not know how it is funded, but the fact that all the leading members of this organization have links to the Conservative Party and other right wing ‘think tanks’ highlights what the real agenda is here.

  • http://www.busman.qmul.ac.uk/staff/staff.php?[email protected] Dr, Hazel Conley

    1. The researchers who conducted this research clearly have no understanding of how trade unions work. Trade union representatives who receive ‘facility time’ i.e. paid time off to conduct their trade union duties, are not employed by the union. They are volunteers elected by their peers to represent them in negotiations with their employers or to represent workers who have grievances or face disciplinary action. They cannot do this if they are not given time to do so. Not one penny of the cost of facility time is received by the trade unions. If trade union representatives did not voluntarily do this, a member of the HR team (probably on a far higher salary) would have to do it. Thereby most employers recognise that providing facility time represents a huge cost saving, in the case of the public sector, a saving to the tax payer, and are happy to do so.
    2. Public sector employees would not need representation if their employers did not regularly break employment and health and safety law. In resolving these issues within the workplace trade union representatives save tax payers huge amounts of money in legal costs that would accrue if these issues were handled by lawyers. Again representatives could not do this if they were not given time off to do so.
    3. In relation to the Union Learning Fund (ULF), this service provided by the trade unions again relies on volunteers to identify skills needs within the workforce. Union learning representatives are not paid in addition for carrying out this duty. If they did not do this, assessing skills deficiencies would again fall to, probably much higher paid, HR staff within most organisations. This is why most employers welcome the ULF as it saves them money – in the case of the public sector, tax payers’ money.
    4. Public sector workers who undertake representative duties are of course tax payers themselves…

  • Gordon

    What is wrong with trade unions getting public support to perform their role. Their role contributes to improving the working lives of millions of people. Their role contributes to justice, equality and democracy. Standards of public service is key to the trade union agenda. They look to provide opportunties for people to learn or to enhance their careers or to maintain a decent standard of living. They campaign for health and safety standards at work. Far more money from the public purse is passed on to employer organisations (who have just had their tax rate cut), whose sole interest is to make a profit that benefits the few, often at the expense of workers’ jobs, pay, standards and health and safety.

  • Michael

    When will the TPA present a report about the funding of the BANKS by THE TAXPAYER???
    £180 billion v £85 million: no contest.
    or is the TPA so biased against unions and for the banks, they they have lost their objectivity?
    Do the banks fund the TPA?
    You could be forgiven for thinking so!

  • James

    Who funds the TaxPayers’ Alliance is a ridiculous question which diverts away from the point in question here. It is not taxpayer money which funds the TaxPayers’ Alliance therefore is irrelevant is it not?!
    I personally think this is an interesting piece of research. It sheds light on an issue very few are aware of. It is particularly poignant when one considers trade unions are contemplating causing massive disturbance and inconvenience to the general public. At a time when millions of workers, in both the public and private sector are facing necessary job cuts, the demands made by the unions are completely unreasonable. and to the previous post – £85 million is certainly not an insignificant amount of money.

  • Michael

    Its ridiculous NOT to ask the question as to who funds the TPA (as it questions what their agenda is really about)Remember the TPA has already attacked civil liberties,(see earlier article about strike bans)and its ridiculous not for the TPA to talk about the largest amount of taxpayers money going to.
    The unions?
    Foreign Aid?
    Islamic fundamentalists?
    No, The Banks who created this mess and continue to rip off buisness.
    It seems the TPA is not concerned about the taxpayer, as 180 billion reasons attest to this.

  • Bill

    The previous posting by James highlights the need for the spending of more taxpayers money on the education system.

  • Charles

    Highlight areas of government waste, maybe you can enlighten me to a hidden agenda? Moron

  • http://www.taxpayersalliance.com Matthew Sinclair

    Mark,
    1. The UMF could easily have further rounds, we are arguing it shouldn’t.
    2. The match funding point seems irrelevant.
    3. Many of the projects clearly facilitate recruitment.
    Dr. Hazel Conley,
    1. Staff on trade union facility time are working for the unions. Even if they do some of those unions’ legitimate work, that frees money in their budget to fulfil other duties as our report said. And when needed they can also act as a paid activist base for public sector unions that is a huge asset.
    2. If they need time off to do legitimate union work (and a lot of these legal cases are spurious, look at Dave Prentis call to abuse equality law to fight cuts) then that is what they should be paid for by the union, with dues, not at the taxpayers’ expense. Private disputes shouldn’t have a price tag for taxpayers not party to them.
    3. Where do you think the money for the ULF comes from?
    4. Our role is to represent the taxpayer interest, the interest of those paying for these roles.

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