Quote of the day
“The Government has been massively subsidising trade unions with taxpayers’ money for years, now it’s coming back to haunt them with Unite’s strike hitting ordinary British travellers.”
- Conservative MP Greg Hands, after it emerged that the trade union behind the British Airways strike has received almost £400,000 in taxpayers’ money in three years. Unite is accused of having taken over the Labour party after donating £11 million and installing a former aide to Gordon Brown in a key role. Britain’s biggest union, which has 2 million members, has also been the biggest beneficiary of a scheme set up by the Government to improve efficiency in the workers’ rights groups. Unite, formed by a merger of Amicus and the Transport & General Workers Union in 2007, has received £334,934 from the Union Modernisation Fund over the past three financial years. When a separate payment to the TGWU is added, the total comes to £382,469. (full story HERE)
If you’d spent £7m keeping Labour afloat recently, wouldn’t you want a little financial love? Or would you settle for beer and sandwiches in No 10?
I suspect the depth of depravity and corruption of this government runs far deeper than we realise. Yes I know they technically haven’t in this case covertly used tax payers money for nefarious ends but it still stinks. If you trawl even just under the surface of what is been going on little slimy thinks keep popping up. The Cabinet junket around the country for instance if that is not electioneering on behalf of the Labour party then I am Dutchman’s uncle. I suspect Bully boy does not want to hold on to power just for power sake just as much he does not want anyone poking around finding out what he has been up to whilst in government. It’s like the bank clerk who has been embezzling for years only to be caught out because he went on holiday. I wonder if he has got the shredder ready.
If the Conservatives win the election, they will have years worth of material on Labour corruption – which hopefully put them in a good position to win a second term.
If I understand the situation correctly, the union modernisation fund was designed to help democratise the unions so that they would be better equipped to operate under the newer market conditions of the present century
What seems to have happened though, is that the union modernisation fund has been continued well beyond any ‘transitory’ period. It’s sole purpose is to allow the trade unions to use this money to fund the Labour party by converting a percentage of each grant award into a political donation. (I also haven’t seen any starving union bosses recently, strange they are in their ruddy faced rotundness!)
This corruption must be highlighted in the run up to the election. To add to this there must be union legislation in the manefesto to create an opt in, rather than opt out, to the political levy, which must be entirely confidential to each member and not available as information to the local shop steward. This would stop the implied threat that the politicised shop stewards use against those not wishing to pay the Labour party, the threat of ‘Jankers’ or ostracisation.
Time to force political parties into a ‘one member one vote’ straightjacket as a condition of standing in UK elections maybe? That might give the union members a more powerful voice and reduce the power of the union barons over their members.
£7 million Shaun? I read it was £11 million and Charlie Whelan is the mover and shaker being the ‘political advisor’ to Unite.
If I had my way I’d rid this country of these unions and start quality protection organisations for workers.
Of course they’re all jobs for the boys and labour isn’t complaining when they’re filling their coffers to that extent.