Sep 2011 28

Union funding in Leeds5

On 7 September, councillors met in Leeds to debate the following motion, placed before them by Cllr Alan Lamb:

‘This Council understands and recognises the valuable role played by Trades Unions in ensuring effective industrial relations and reaffirms the principle of providing reasonable support to Trades Unions including time off for stewards for this purpose.

However, this council believes that given the current state of the public finances taxpayer subsidy of full time Trade Union officials should now be brought to an end. The £417,000 annual cost to taxpayers in Leeds for 15 full time convenors is now unjustifiable both in terms of the massive budget pressure faced by Leeds City Council and the programme of cuts to frontline services currently being undertaken by the Labour administration.

This Council also notes the wider context of the huge donations that Trade Unions are able to offer to the Labour Party.’

The motion was defeated by 56 votes to 31, with 4 abstentions. A total of 56 councillors had to declare an interest before this motion was debated, because they were either a member of a trade union or were married to a member. It was correct they should declare an interest, but should some of them have declared a prejudicial interest because they either work for a union or they received funding from unions for their election campaigns?

Take Cllr Javaid Akhtar. He works for the GMB as a branch secretary. Cllr Judith Blake, also a member of the GMB, received £250 for election materials from her union, and an additional £200 from UNISON. Both were sent from the London offices of those unions.

Cllr David Congreve is a retired member of UNISON, and he received £220 from his union for mailing. Cllr Jack Dunn is a life member of the TGWU, and received £138 from UNISON for direct mailing. Cllr Adam Ogilvie is a member of UNITE, and has received contributions towards his expenses not only from his union, but also from UNISON, AMICUS, and CWU. The list goes on.

The question I have is: how can councillors who either work for or have received funding from trade unions be allowed to vote on the motion placed before the full council? If you were a member of a planning committee, and a company you had a financial interest in was asking for planning permission, you would recuse yourself from the meeting for that item on the agenda. There would be such an obvious conflict of interest, as there was in this meeting, yet councillors who financially benefit from their membership of a union were allowed to vote.

With so many councillors dependent on the unions for funding, it wouldn’t really be practical for all of them to recuse themselves. But that doesn’t make the backdoor subsidy of their own expenses any more legitimate. If they won’t put the wider community’s interests first, and ask unions to pay for their own staff instead of handing the bill to taxpayers, then taxpayers should keep that in mind at the next election.

Time off to occasionally represent your members – at your own expense or the union’s, is not the same as working full-time for the union at taxpayers’ expense. Unions know this. Those councillors voted against the motion in Leeds also know it. It is unclear whether those councillors who receive financial aid from unions technically should have declared a prejudicial interest, but it is clearly a serious conflict.

If councils keep protecting taxpayer funding of trade unions at the expense of frontline services, if they keep indulging special interests many of them are part of, the Government have to step in. This kind of political funding distorts democracy at the local and national level and is completely illegitimate.

Related Posts

  • Blarg1987

    I do agree with your comments above about if councillers are funded by or are paid by a group or organisation they should not be able to vote on an issue that affects that organisation or group.

    As with the new care bill going through parliament, being an example, several MP’s are none exectutiv directors of companies that would benefit from this so I ask will the TPA now name and shame these MP’s and groups as one must question if such policies are best value for money for tax payers?

    Your swift response on this issue would be appreciated.

    • http://www.facebook.com/andrewallison4 Andrew Allison

      Those councillors who receive financial support from their union are effectively sponsored by them. If taxpayers did not fund the unions as generously, this could easily result in those councillors losing money. To me, this is a prejudicial interest. 

      Those MPs you mention have declared an interest, as required to do so by law. It may be in their interest that certain legislation passes through parliament, however the companies they are directors of will have to fight for contracts. It’s not a done deal. 

      There is a clear difference between the two examples, although I agree, both of them pose a conflict of interest. 

      • Blarg1987

        I think that is likely to happen as those MP’s will probably be sitting on the boards of the tendering side as well or more likely, write the contracts in such a way to favour their bidder / join teh company that wins.

        I think all MP’s and parties who get fudning from any group or individual should not be able to vote on matters that could benefit them but only allowed to vote against,  as the last 5 years have shown in whitehall, if you fund the party in power you are more likely to get your own way (banking sector funding labour and conservatves).

        But either way it will be interesting to see how many contracts companies obtain that MP’s are none executive directors for as it would not suprise me if there is a corelation :)

      • Questioner

        Andrew, I think you slightly miss the point here. It’s legitimate to ask whether the TPA will be as tough on conflicts of interest when they involve entrepreneurs as you are when they only involve public sector workers.

        You must be aware that the other side of the coin with much public sector waste is a predatory private sector ready to exploit every weakness. A good example would be outsourcing, a subject which should be front-page news on the TPA website every week, but seems strangely absent / muted.

        The TPA needs to show that it can be ruthless with companies which live high on the hog at taxpayers’ expense. In the pas you’ve done some excellent work exposing management consultancy; the more that you address the private sector dimension, the less likely people will be to assume that the TPA is a front for the Masters of the Universe.

        • Blarg1987

          I keep asking them will they name and shame CEO’s who benefit from tax payer contracts as they have witht he unions but am still waiting for that, so I agree with your last paragraph most of all, one must wonder :)