A Death By Eight Million Cuts

ukcarper

CLAPTON wrote: »

Indeed so
which is why so few people are members of TUs or of the Labour party

Just over 11 million people voted for Tories in last election, over 6 million workers are members of a trade union so not so few.

CLAPTON

ukcarper wrote: »

Just over 11 million people voted for Tories in last election, over 6 million workers are members of a trade union so not so few.

in the context of the left 'narrative' of Moby i.e. that labour party and the TU are one and the same, then the numbers tell a different story. Voters for labour don't equate to party members.
The activist narrative of heroic trade unionist fighting for social justice and that all workers benefits wouldn't be there but for the TUs, doesn't have a resonance with the majority of people today, especially the young.
If labour want to be relevant to the UK, rather than an activist clique, then they have to engage with 21st century issues and 21st century people. Simply being anti Tory is not good enough.

ukcarper

CLAPTON wrote: »

in the context of the left 'narrative' of Moby i.e. that labour party and the TU are one and the same, then the numbers tell a different story. Voters for labour don't equate to party members.
The activist narrative of heroic trade unionist fighting for social justice and that all workers benefits wouldn't be there but for the TUs, doesn't have a resonance with the majority of people today, especially the young.
If labour want to be relevant to the UK, rather than an activist clique, then they have to engage with 21st century issues and 21st century people. Simply being anti Tory is not good enough.

Less than half of union members are in unions affiliated to Labour.

You can argue the figures all you like the Labour party has more members than Tory Party but the Tories were still elected al be it with less than 25% of the votes of those eligible to vote.

antrobus

ukcarper wrote: »

Can't you opt out of political levy then, I know people in the union I belonged to who did.

Note Generali's use of "Labor". He's talking about the Australian Labor Party. The rules might be different there.:)

ukcarper

antrobus wrote: »

Note Generali's use of "Labor". He's talking about the Australian Labor Party. The rules might be different there.:)

yes I gathered that.

antrobus

Here's some interesting background.

A report on a study carried out by Unlock Democracy

A survey found 14 out of 15 trade unions affiliated to the Labour Party failed to explain to prospective new members that they did not have to pay fees to the party. They also did not inform them that they had a legal right to opt out on their membership forms and website....Unlock Democracy found that only public sector union Unison allowed new members to choose whether to affiliate to Labour or not on their membership form.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9580715/Unions-fail-to-inform-members-they-can-opt-out-of-Labour-funding.html

antrobus

ukcarper wrote: »

Just over 11 million people voted for Tories in last election, over 6 million workers are members of a trade union so not so few.

Yes, but the two categories are not mutually exclusive. I presume there must be at least some Tory trade unionists, otherwise they wouldn't have two websites.:)

http://www.conservativesatwork.org.uk/
http://www.toryworkers.co.uk/

ukcarper

antrobus wrote: »

Yes, but the two categories are not mutually exclusive. I presume there must be at least some Tory trade unionists, otherwise they wouldn't have two websites.:)

http://www.conservativesatwork.org.uk/
http://www.toryworkers.co.uk/

True I was just responding to Claptons post saying a few people were trade union members.

antrobus

ukcarper wrote: »

True I was just responding to Claptons post saying a few people were trade union members.

I don't think he said that. He said that "The activist narrative of heroic trade unionist fighting for social justice and that all workers benefits wouldn't be there but for the TUs, doesn't have a resonance with the majority of people today, especially the young"

You could well argue that he was right. Total union membership has fallen, and even amongst those who are members there is sometimes a distinct lack of interest in the union itself.

Certainly you could say that given that something like 75% of workers are not in a trade union, then clearly they don't resonate with the majority of people.

ukcarper

CLAPTON wrote: »

Indeed so
which is why so few people are members of TUs or of the Labour party

antrobus wrote: »

I don't think he said that. He said that "The activist narrative of heroic trade unionist fighting for social justice and that all workers benefits wouldn't be there but for the TUs, doesn't have a resonance with the majority of people today, especially the young"

You could well argue that he was right. Total union membership has fallen, and even amongst those who are members there is sometimes a distinct lack of interest in the union itself.

Certainly you could say that given that something like 75% of workers are not in a trade union, then clearly they don't resonate with the majority of people.

I think he did