Trade Union Bill (First sitting)

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I am a member of Unison and Unite the union.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I am a member of the GMB union.

--- Later in debate ---

[Seema Kennedy]

And this would be part of it.

David Martin: As part of it, it is fine.

[Jessica Morden]

Q 43 Can I ask the CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce, are your members concerned about the proposals in the Bill that mean that details of disputes between employers and unions will be posted on the certification officer’s website?

John Cridland: No, we believe that transparency would be helpful in providing the clarity that I gave in my previous answer.

Dr Adam Marshall: Our members have expressed opinions on clauses 2 to 8 rather than clauses 9 to 17—the clauses that reflect directly to the duties of the certification officer in that respect.

[Jessica Morden]

Q 44 So have you consulted with your members on this at all?

Dr Adam Marshall: They have said to us, through our own policy-making processes, that these are matters that they did not wish to comment on. They wished to restrict their comments to a different portion of the Bill.

John Cridland: My answer was that I am comfortable—the CBI is comfortable—with the proposed changes.

[Jessica Morden]

Q 45 Does that mean that you have consulted?

John Cridland: Yes. We have consulted on the Bill as a whole.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

Q 46 It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. As a former Government lawyer, compliance is always of enormous interest to me. Do you feel—this is for all of you—that the enhancements to the role of certification officer are really sufficient and that they will make a difference?

John Cridland: We look to harmonious employee relations. It is very important to us that we work with recognised trade unions and that we work strenuously, as trade unions nearly always do, to avoid these strikes. If there are strikes, they need to be properly and fairly regulated. Compliance is therefore important. You cannot have rules that are not properly enforced. We think these are sensible provisions to strengthen the compliance requirements but I put my answer to your question, if you will allow me, in the context that I have because I think we all want to see these rules applied in the smallest possible number of circumstances.

Dr Adam Marshall: I have nothing to add given my answer to the previous question.

David Martin: Likewise, it is not a provision that I understand in full detail. I need to spend a lot more time to understand the implications of it, so I have nothing to add.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

Q 59 Thank you, Sir Edward. I very much echo the comments in your submission that responsible trade unions are a force for good in the workplace and the community, so thank you for that.

I just want to return to the topic of the political levy. I was glad to hear that both of you, on your membership form, specifically provide members with the information to opt out. It turns out that that is not as common as you would think and many other unions do not do that. Given what you have said about the importance of transparency and the reason for you to have put that on the form, do you think that it is appropriate that other unions do not include that information?

John Hannett: Well, you are going to be speaking to other unions and they will give you their answer, but for me, it is right to do it, because I think that if I am going to recruit somebody into the union, I have a responsibility to tell them what they get for their money; I have a responsibility to tell them where their money is allocated. Our form is very clear, and we can certainly give you copies of the form. It is explicit that if you wish to drop out, you can. I think that is honest and the right thing to do. I think that is honest and the right thing to do.

[Jessica Morden]

Q 60 Can I ask Mr Hannett a specific question? You have run campaigns such as “Freedom From Fear”, which is about highlighting abuse against workers in retail and other such sectors. Can you tell the Committee how the measures in clause 11 might affect your ability to run such non-political campaigns?

John Hannett: I am sure that the Committee is aware that there are two separate funds. One is the political fund, which allows us to do political campaigns, so where there is a political link clearly we identify the campaigns as such. For instance, that one is linked politically; it is also linked industrially. On one level we engage with employers about providing good, safe environments for people to work in, but there is also a political impact when we want to campaign for new legislation to protect shop workers. Therefore, we need the resources to do that. We need the right balance, and the political levy and the combination of general and political funds enable us to do that. Without that kind of resource what you are doing is effectively making it harder for unions such as mine to campaign on such issues.

What is really important for me in the question though is the transparency. In a sense, when we go for that 10-year ballot we make it absolutely clear what we spend the money on and we also, of course, let the certification officer see clearly where we spend it. I suppose that unions such as mine and Roy’s are confused about why we are in this situation when we have had a highly successful model.

Roy Rickhuss: We also ran a fairly successful campaign around betting shops and against violence towards workers and staff in those shops, and I am pleased to say that it had all-party support. It was a successful campaign. It is questionable, and I do not know the answer at this stage, whether we would have been able to run those campaigns if they had been deemed to be political and the money had needed to come out of a political fund.

We also ran a fairly successful campaign on pensions when the last Labour Government was in power. We had a company in Cardiff that went into receivership—administration—and our members lost their pensions. We ended up taking the Labour Government to the European courts to establish the financial assistance scheme. Again, would we have been able to do that had we not had a political fund? That was about holding the Government to account in terms of protecting our members and their pensions, and we did it—and always will do it—irrespective of the colour of the Government. Whether it be Labour or Conservative, we will use our funds to protect our members’ best interests and that is what it is about for us.

[Edward Argar]

Q 61 You have been very reasonable and measured in your evidence, so I thank you for that. Going back to the importance of thresholds, do you agree with Mr McCluskey when he writes to the Prime Minister:

“No one, of course, can be happy when strike action takes place—especially in services on which the public depend—on the basis of the active endorsement of only a minority of trade union members affected”,

and that that clearly helps to make the case for the proposed thresholds?

John Hannett: My view on that is, first, that the obvious thing is that industrial action is a last resort. I spend most of my time as a trade unionist problem solving rather than problem causing. Also, for a member to vote to take industrial action, it has to be a last resort. I could give you statistics, but given the time I will not. We can say that we certainly solve problems more than we go on strike.