A Death By Eight Million Cuts

antrobus

ukcarper wrote: »

I think he did

OK, I misread.

I can be wrong sometimes. Not often, I grant you. But it does happen.:)

Moby

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.

I never said anything about 'heroic' Trade Unionists....that was your twisting of my narrative. What I talked about was the role my union and the unions that my family have been members of! Whether people in the 21st century will engage with such issues is a moot point granted but I think there is some evidence from Corbyn's election and from Bernie Sanders good showing that these are live issues. The possibility of exploitation/bullying and all the other issues I described are issues which resonate with people today. Rather than be open to that I think you deliberately caricature trade unionism as being irrelevant because of your own prejudices. I've posted previously about the role of my union in addressing racism within prisons. I work daily in challenging situations and the support of my union is something I am grateful for. Doctors, police, fire fighters, etc are in a similar position.

CLAPTON

Moby wrote: »

I never said anything about 'heroic' Trade Unionists....that was your twisting of my narrative. What I talked about was the role my union and the unions that my family have been members of! Whether people in the 21st century will engage with such issues is a moot point granted but I think there is some evidence from Corbyn's election and from Bernie Sanders good showing that these are live issues. The possibility of exploitation/bullying and all the other issues I described are issues which resonate with people today. Rather than be open to that I think you deliberately caricature trade unionism as being irrelevant because of your own prejudices. I've posted previously about the role of my union in addressing racism within prisons. I work daily in challenging situations and the support of my union is something I am grateful for. Doctors, police, fire fighters, etc are in a similar position.

it will be interesting to see the results of the May local elections.

Moby

CLAPTON wrote: »

it will be interesting to see the results of the May local elections.

....and the Mayoral election in London because I'm actively campaigning in that one. The local elections are less meaningful really because the only way is down for Labour!.....but whatever happens we soldier on fighting for what we believe in don't we!:)

BobQ

Generali wrote: »

Fascinating.

Looking at a few periods at random I think we can safely say:

1. Corporate donations are dwarfed by trade union and individual ones, especially when you note that the biggest corporate donor to the Tories by a very long way is a lotto that is really just a way of channeling small donors' money to the Cons.
2. All trade union money goes to Labour

Going back over the entire period since 2001:

Individuals have given £292,241,431
Companies have given £120,961,906
Unions have given £156,139.975
Taxpayers have given £90,635,758

'Others' (whatever that means) gave Labour over £19,000,000 over the period, £12,000,000 was paid to the Co-Operative party (and presumably straight on to Labour) and LLPs (used to disguise donations in the US, no idea about the UK) paid £2.5 million each to Labour and Tories.

As I read it Labour is funded by a small number of unions who represent a much larger number of individuals who contribute a few pence a week to the political fund. The Conservatives ae mostly funded by a few hundred individuals making large donations.

CLAPTON

Moby wrote: »

....and the Mayoral election in London because I'm actively campaigning in that one. The local elections are less meaningful really because the only way is down for Labour!.....but whatever happens we soldier on fighting for what we believe in don't we!:)

why is the only way down for labour : is that the Corbyn/TU effect?

BobQ

princeofpounds wrote: »

Interesting discussion.


So, how much does it cost, do you think, to really have a sway over a party? These are big sums of money for an ordinary person, but they aren't actually all THAT big in the grand scheme of things.

Well as I understand it the larger individual donors to the Conservatives get to have lunch with David Cameron, the next rung down get lunch with a Cabinet Minister and so on.

I suspect Labour does the same for a large individual donor.

BobQ

Generali wrote: »

Not necessarily. The Labour Party has quite a history of putting the rights of the unions ahead of the rights of the worker.

Look at the Trade Union laws before Maggie took the sickle to them: how were the closed shop and One Out, All Out good for workers?

I gather you do not like trade unions, but their rights are almost indivisible from the employment rights they seek to protect. The relationship between an employer and the employee is by its nature a very unequal one (except in rare cases where an employee has unique skills or knowledge). Employees have some rights but without statutory protections an employer can easily act arbitrarily or unfairly. Yet the evidence is that organisations are more efficient and there is better employee engagement when staff are consulted about workplace issues and understand the issues faced by the company.

I do not deny that in the past some trade unions have acted in an arbitrary manner, but some employers have done the same thing.

People have the right not to join a union, but what we should be doing is improving union democracy rather than destroying them. Unions can work cooperatively with managers to the benefit of the organisation and many do (often not of interest to the press). The unacceptable behaviour of unions stems from a lack of interest by members who are happy to pay their dues (like they pay house insurance) but unwilling to participate. This enables unrepresentative cliques to take decisions that are not shared by their members. Online voting and other measures to encourage participation is a better way of dealing with unions. In some countries France, Germany and Sweden for example, firms and unions work in a much more cooperative manner.

BobQ

Generali wrote: »

Or under the proposed new rules members could join a union and decide to opt in to supporting Labour.

I don't support Labor but my union supports them and uses my money to do so.

Are you saying you are a member of a UK trade union in Australia?

Assuming the answer is yes, are you saying you have not opted out of the union's political fund?

As I understand it, when a union ballots on creating or keeping a political fund, the contributors are not necessarily donating their contribution to a particular party. They are authorising their union to do things (like run campaigns, commission adverts, sponsor MPs research and donate to parties). The idea is that the union acts to protect the interests of its members using the money.

BobQ

Generali wrote: »

There is no way that I can see. That might just be because I am:

1. Too dumb to opt out (possible)
2. Too lazy to opt out (probable)
3. Not able to do so as it's made not possible or deliberately made difficult (pretty likely)


We also have an investigation going on over here into unions. One finding is that unions have been approaching companies and agreeing that new employees will become union members. In return, companies will pay subs for members to the union. As a result unions can afford to pay officers of the union a lot more and provide officers with credit cards which have been used to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Labor Government tried to prevent prosecutions (can't think why) but under the Liberal Government some of the skeletons are coming out.

So the employers who do this see a benefit in having a union to consult with and negotiate with?