May 2011 31

Union Funding at Tameside Council Rockets Up 48%17

Last year, the TPA blew the whistle on how much councils were wasting on paying full time union staff. In 2009/2010 Tameside Council employed 8.4 full time equivalent union staff at a cost of £227,469. A year later the Daily Mail published an article which gave the figures for 2010/2011 and revealed that Tameside had employed the same number of full time equivalent staff, but at an increased cost of £336,718. This places Tameside Council fourth in the country for the highest union spend.

What’s worth noting is that despite all the cuts to public spending, union grandees at Tameside Council have had a 48 per cent pay rise! The average union rep in Tameside is paid £40,085. This is almost double the salary of what the average person earns in Tameside.

Yvonne Cartey

Yvonne Cartey

We can all be thankful that the figure next year will be less as long time union stalwarts, Unison’s Anne Keighley and GMB’s Yvonne Cartey, have both taken a nice voluntary redundancy payment. And Yvonne Cartey hasn’t really left the council at all as she’s now a Labour councillor for the St. Michael’s ward. I think it stinks that any council employee could take redundancy and then cosily jump aboard to become a councillor for their previous employer. I have asked Councillor Yvonne Cartey in the local press how much she got from Tameside Council in her redundancy package and if she actually plans on rightly returning her redundancy money to the taxpayers of Tameside. So far she has ignored my letters and not responded.

Tameside Council’s Executive Leader, Councillor Kieran Quinn, who was until recently a trade union representative for the Communications Workers Union, did a webchat with the local paper, the Tameside Advertiser. One person asked:

“Why are council taxpayers funding councils employees’  union representatives, when large companies will only fund a works convener?”

Kieran’s response was:

“Many UK and international companies understand the magnificent amount of work trade unions and workers representatives bring to these organisations assisting these companies to make key financial and planning decisions. Tameside Council also accept a huge amount of support given by trade union and workers reps, and as far as I’m concerned, if the help and advice given was removed Tameside would be a poorer place for it.”

Tameside is already a poorer place by the tune of £336,718, and many large companies don’t bother with trade union reps anymore. They went away in the 80′s and only linger in former nationalised industries. Whilst I am not against employees having trade union representation if they so wish, this should come out directly from their union subs and not from taxpayers’ cash.

I asked Kieran as to why union staff got a 48 per cent increase whilst others had their pay cut. He responded not by answering the question, but instead chose to smear the TaxPayers’ Alliance:

“I dispute the TaxPayers’ Alliance figures. This organisation is continually shown to be wrong with the figures they quote, however that never gets reported because the story has moved on. Tameside has a reputation for using taxpayers’ money well. We are the only excellent Council in Greater Manchester, getting the highest possible score for value for money in how we use taxpayers’ money and that will continue as we face up to the largest ever cuts in our budget forced on us by the Tory led government.”

The figures for union funding given to the Daily Mail came directly from a freedom of information request to Tameside Council. So any figures which are wrong, must be due to a response from a council employee. Tameside may well have a gleaming report from the Audit Commission, but we all know that this is a four star ticking exercise.

I know that Kieran and the council’s press office monitor posts made on this blog, so come on, tell us why union pay has gone up by 48 per cent? Tell us how much your union reps are getting in redundancy pay and if one of your councillors will be returning that pay?

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  • Peter

    Of course, these people are going to suck up as much taxpayer money as they can get their hands on. The scandal is that central government allows them to get away with it.

  • Shiela Thompson

    Union & Labour parasites – they are bleeding councils dry of resources that should be used on services.
    Thank you TPA for making this known – why doesnt the BBC do proper journalism anymore exposing this endemic corruption?

    • Robert Brown

      The BBC are one and the same as these union wasters, helping themselves to public money. But do not expect the government to intervene, they are made up of crooks and cheats themselves, the reason people continue voting them in is simple.  They are stupid and ignorant, simple and naive, dumbed down by a left-wing dominated teaching system. 

      • Steve Collins

        Were you actually frothing at the mouth when you typed your little rant?

        So, let’s see – the Unions, the BBC, Government, teachers are all cheats, crooks, parasites and everyone else in the country are stupid, ignorant, simple and naive. Well, that just about covers everyone in spittle and vitriol.

        I don’t recognise the country that you describe. That’s because it only exists in your mind – which is quite clearly an unpleasant place to be, so you have my sympathy.

        • Robert Brown

          Oh dear, Mr Collins, unpleasant? Me? By the tone of your post it seems to be you who is the unpleasant one. It is brutally simple. Labour has left us to all intents and purposes, bankrupt. People who vote for more of the same must, by definition, be quite stupid. Look at the sheer number of people protesting at public sector cuts in that recent march, then look at the number supporting cuts, the TPA foremost. I was there. A nice, well mannered crowd, no violence, no vitriol. What a contrast. The charge of cheats and crooks stands, as events have shown. I have shown your post to friends and relatives and they chuckled at how wrong you are, but then it is hard to assess a persons personality from a single post, so i forgive you. Oh, and the keyboard is free of spittle, check yours.

          • Steve Collins

            Like most TPA supporters you are clearly highly myopic and, like your politics, only examine a very narrow aspect of government and society.

            I’m old enough to remember the state that 18 years of Tory government left this country in. Crumbling hospitals, thousands dying on waiting lists, children being taught in damp, disgusting conditions, run-down towns and city centres, the almost total destruction of our manufacturing industry etc. You would have to be blind or wilfully ignorant not to acknowledge that our country’s infrastructure has been enormously improved over the past 13 years – new schools and hospitals, a far better NHS, regenerated cities, better transport. All these things benefit the majority, they benefit families with children such as myself – that’s why many of us still hold left of centre views. Therefore you have hundreds of thousands marching against cuts and just 350 turning up to the risible event at Old Palace Yard – despite all the positive publicity it received from the right-wing press.

            Yes, I agree that the country is near-on skint and I also think that under Brown Labour spent too much when the recession bit. However you, like so many right-wingers, have indulged in a convenient Stalinesque rewriting of history  – our nation’s financial ills stem from the greed of a wealthy elite in the City of London and Wall St, a classic example of the privatisation of profit and the socialisation of loss. You and the likes of the TPA are entirely disingenuous when you direct your ire at people who hold left of centre views, public sector workers, union members etc – they didn’t cause the financial crisis and the recession, but they’re the people who are bearing the brunt on behalf of those greedy individuals who, to all intents and purposes , have got away scot-free.

            Read the drivel that the TPA posts on here every single day. Councils this, councils that. It’s absolutely laughable and it’s also a lie. Shifting the blame from the guilty to the innocent.

            You really are stupid if you truly believe that people who hold left of centre views are naive and ignorant. They tend to care a bit more about others rather than the narrow, insular, selfish and bitter views that you and many other on the right hold.

            By the way, I’m both glad and surprised that your friends and relatives are so easily amused, I really didn’t think that those on the right had a sense of humour! 

        • Hardeep Singh

          No Steve I think Robert has got you there, though his description is a little all encompassing. Nevertheless he’s generally on the right track.

          • Steve Collins

            Errm  – no he hasn’t.

    • http://twitter.com/geyza Geyza

       If the tax-payer had to fund Conservative party reps in local government jobs, THEN you would hear the BBC Complain about waste if taxpayer’s money.

    • http://twitter.com/geyza Geyza

       If the tax-payer had to fund Conservative party reps in local government jobs, THEN you would hear the BBC Complain about waste if taxpayer’s money.

    • Dave

      I rather thought that the BBC had done an excellent journalistic job in exposing the scandalous conditions at a facility in Bristol housing people with learning difficulties.

      This is a facility owned and operated in the private sector and charging the taxpayer some £3,500 per patient per week whilst providing an appallingly poor service.

      Where is the TPA’s condemnation of this private sector rip off of the taxpayer? Oddly enough, TPA is silent on the matter, just as it is silent on the ”problems” of Southern Cross Healthcare.

      It seems that “bleeding councils dry of resources” is alive and well in the private sector.

      • Steve Collins

        Absolutely spot on – it was private equity firm Blackstone that stripped Southern Cross of its assets and introduced a suicidal business plan just so they could make a fast buck, leaving the taxpayer to pick up the bill.

        Why hasn’t the TPA said anything about that? The potential liability for the taxpayer dwarves all this ‘non-job’ baloney.

        Also, I haven’t heard a dickybird from the TPA about Lords Taylor and Hadingfield – is because they’re Tory peers by any chance.

        Such rank hypocrisy.

      • muggins

        Sorry, a bit late coming to this.
        Who is the head of the agency responsible for enforcing standards, the Care Quality Commission.
        It couldn’t be Chief Executive Cynthia Bower, she of Stafford Hospital fame, on a salary of £215,000.
        Back in the day, when I wore a younger mans clothes, heads of departments,managers, even MP’s used to resign when they messed up.
        It doesn’t happen nowadays as it will effect their final salary pension scheme.
        Quite happy to suck at the teat of taxpayers money, not quite so keen on responsibility.

  • AndyN

    Hilarious stuff from Keiran Quinn.

    Describing unions as doing a “magnificent job” contributing to “key financial and planning decisions” instead of describing what they actually do – give tidy sinecures to inept box-tickers and bum-scratchers who are utterly useless when one of their members actually needs them for anything.

    Mind you, as that latter description applies almost identically to your average local government councillor, it’s hardly suprising.

  • Joe Hillstrom

    Actually, if there was an increase in spending on union activities, it would have been the amount spent across the board as paid facility time eg more reps in the work place therefore costing more. It wouldn’t be because someone who happened to be a Union Rep was paid a huge increase in salary. If they did this the employer could be looking at a huge amount of equal pay claims. Whilst it is unlawful to treat someone less favorably for being a member of a Trade Union, it is also unlawful to treat someone less favorably for not being a member of a Trade Union.

    This comment made me chuckle:

    “Why are council taxpayers funding councils employees’  union
    representatives, when large companies will only fund a works convener?”

    Union reps and conveners are effectively the same thing, as both are elected lay activists. The term Convener is often used by the Trade Union Movement to describe an experienced Union rep.

    I have assumed from the above quote that what you were actually doing with the above quote was making reference to full time officials. However there wages are actually paid via the members subs. However some Union reps do have paid facilities time arrangements that enable them to come away from their work place full time for the period of time that they are elected. This is normally 1 year.

    I know all of the above because I am a Full Time Official for a Trade Union by profession.

    Ultimately if you want to attack our facilities time agreements then carry on. I need something or someone to drag things back to the coal face so that our members come out fighting.

    As for references to endemic corruption, Sheila you must either be incredibly rich, incredibly thick for a bit of both. How do you think the 8 hour day and various other things were bor

    P.S Good turnout at your protest a few weeks ago, LOSERS!

    We had over half a million at ours on 26th March.

    It must anger you all that right now Reps on paid facilities time at PCS, NUT, ATL, NAHT and UCU are all busy coordinating industrial action for 30th June 2011.

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  • hadenuff

    No shortage here then of support for the continuation of the taxpayer grand rip-off. 

    Brown lives on in the hearts of the many who enjoy the trousering of unearned remuneration….