Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Debate between Ian Murray and Julie Elliott(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Julie Elliott
Does my hon. Friend agree that if our amendments dealing with this issue are not accepted, there is a danger that such sensitive information, as classified by the Data Protection Act, will become much more vulnerable?
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly good point. One of the key aspects of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act is to ensure that trade unions’ membership lists are up to date. The current categories are set out in sections 24(1) and (2) of the 1992 Act—my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) spoke about them a few hours ago—which contain provisions to ensure that anyone unhappy with their personal data being held by the trade union can apply to the certification officer for a ruling on whether those data should be held. There are therefore already strict rules about the data, which is right, given, say, blacklisting and whether data on trade union membership become an issue.
The purpose of amendments 116 and 117 is to restrict data collection in a trade union to collection from the data controller only. The data controller can subsequently obtain the required information from individual branches or sections, as mentioned in the Bill, but the responsibility for that must come from the data controller of the union, who has the legal obligations both under the Data Protection Act and their responsibilities to the Information Commissioner. Inquiries to other centres makes the job of the data controller near impossible. Trade unions manage their membership data carefully; that should be explicitly maintained in the Bill.
Such considerations have given rise to a fear that part 3, and clause 37 in particular, could result in a new scandal of people being blacklisted for being members of a trade union. That is the reasoning behind amendment 120, which would restrict disclosure of a member’s data to where the member had consented—that is, given explicit consent under the Data Protection Act—and the investigation of criminal proceedings. The list of other such circumstances set out in clause 37 is unhelpful in dealing with people’s data protection concerns and the blacklisting issues that might arise. Proposed new section 24ZG(3) of the 1992 Act, as set out in clause 37, is too widely drafted and creates other legal responsibilities that the data controller might not be able to meet.
In the last couple of years we have seen the increasing exposure of blacklisting activities in some sectors, in which individuals have concerns about joining a trade union for fear of victimisation at work and loss of employment. Increasing powers for state officials to access union membership records and addresses can only increase the deterrent against such activities. May I respectfully suggest to the Minister that, rather than increasing the regulation of trade unions through this Bill—which might increase the risk of blacklisting—the Government should take active steps to abide by the decision taken by this House back in February, after the Opposition day debate on blacklisting, to instigate an inquiry, release the information held by the Information Commissioner’s Office about the victims of blacklisting and look at a compensation package for those on the blacklists?
Julie Elliott
My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that not a single person has said that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck said, what does “assurer” even mean? It is such a nonsense of a description. As I said, we have to work in the real world. Good legislation needs to understand and relate to the real world, but nothing in clause 37 does, according to my knowledge and experience.
On amendment 112, let us look at the real world—the practicalities. This is about employers sharing information and accurate details with trade unions. Where there is a good relationship and a good recognition agreement, the unions work hand in hand with employers because if businesses do well, union members do well, and there is therefore complete transparency, openness and sharing of information. However, if that situation does not exist, that is not the case. The TULR regulations already set the requirements on the maintenance of the membership system. Various rulings have said that reasonable steps have to be taken to make sure that the membership records are accurate.
In my personal experience—that is where we can all draw our information from—bad employers will do anything to make trade union records wrong. That does not happen only in relation to membership checks for industrial action ballots, which are the most onerous and time-consuming things a trade union official will ever do. In can be a case of trying to get recognition in a company where members have been recruited. Usually it is when members in an unrecognised work force have problems that they go to a trade union. Time, energy and effort will have been spent recruiting the number of members to hit the threshold required to be able to apply for recognition. It is unbelievable the steps that employers will take to try to scupper those numbers. They will suddenly take on temporary workers. If the union is applying for recognition for a particular part of the work force, they will move people from one part of the company to another suddenly to boost the numbers so that the required percentage is not reached. The idea that employers of that mindset will share information about our members is ridiculous.
I would like to run through some of the things that we did when I was a trade union official to try to ensure that our membership records were as up to date as possible. A couple of times a year we sent out magazines to every single member of the trade union, and there was always a big advert saying, “If you move house, change jobs or change your telephone number, let us know.” It has become increasingly hard to keep membership records accurate. Historically people had land lines and did not change their telephone number; nowadays, a lot of people do not have land lines and mobile phone numbers can change quite frequently. There are an enormous number of inaccurate phone numbers in the records of trade unions, as there will be, I suggest, in any organisation. The situation is incredibly difficult. Any other mailing to members would have another advert or a paragraph saying, “If any of your details have changed please let us know.” We had branch audits where it would be a specific task in a certain branch to go through the membership records and physically talk to people about them. I do not think that trade unions could do any more to keep track of their members.
Another issue is that the world has changed. This goes back to my point about having to be practical; in my view, nothing in this clause is practical. Trade union workplace branches, which historically the unions were built on, virtually do not exist any more because the world of work has changed. People do not start work when they leave school and stay there until they retire. We do not have mass employers of thousands of people where people remain in their jobs and can gain promotion and go through the ranks in one company. That is not today’s world of work. In those days, it was quite straightforward to keep track of the membership.
All those things have made the situation more difficult. I hate the idea of what the clause proposes. It is saying that some random person on the street—the assurer, whoever this person is and from whatever background—could challenge what is happening and say, “You haven’t kept your membership records correct.” What is the level of leeway going to be? Where will reasonableness come into this?
Ian Murray
My hon. Friend is making a compelling case against the Bill. Given her vast experience of involvement in the trade union movement, is she able to think of any circumstances in which a trade union would think it was in its own interests not to keep accurate membership records?
Julie Elliott
No, absolutely not. Trade unions would welcome anything to help them keep more accurate records, because of the amount of time they spend trying to communicate with their members. That argument is a misnomer—it is ridiculous.
Trade Union Officials (Public Funding)
Debate between Ian Murray and Julie Elliott(13 years ago)
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