PM asked today - How much we all paid?

[TopTree]

Prime Minister ? Asked today [18/05/11] about Council Tax paying for Trade Union activities:

Freedom Information request - Southhwark Council - reply dated 11th February 2011.

We all paid:

02/2001 to 10/02010.

Trade Union activities salary payments = ?260,692.20p

Other costs = 57,753.24p.

FOIAct ? information - copywrite - Southwark Council ? Not for publication for profit.

Lib-Dens - In charge for some of this time?

[ratty]

So, not a lot then!

[Loz]

I'm not the biggest fan of trade unions (understatement...) but a) that doesn't seem like a lot, given the number of people Southwark employ and b) was that amount deducted from salaries anyway?

[Banksy]

About ?35K per year to maintain good relationships with the unions and wider workforce in such a large and complex organisation as a council sounds like good value to me. Daily Mail reader alert?

[TopTree]

My error - Quoted Now got glasses on:

2001/02 ?221,380.97 ?54,304.92

200203 ?185,138.73 ?42,513.48

2003/4 ?176,450.00 ?59,453.16

2004/5 ?188,875.96 ?75,563.42

2005/6 ?188,914.12 ?67,024.01

2006/7 ?208,756.16 ?56,729.69

2007/8 ?175,897.10 ?33,105.74

2008/9 ?243,124.42 ?39,926.65

2009/10 ?260,692.20 ?57,753.24

Totals: ?1,849,229.66 ?486,374.31

[ratty]

Yep - still not much....

NEXT!

[Penguin68]

Many companies allow active trades-unionists (branch officials, shop stewards etc.) paid time off to pursue union activities, which may include representing or being the 'friend' of a member being disciplined. Often that is set-up as 'so much time per week/ month' although it may not all be taken. It is possible to impute the salary cost of the time being taken (and sometimes a 'hire' cost of company rooms being used for meetings), if these are allowed on-site. Sometimes the company actually charges the union a hire-fee for using company space - in which case it is union subscriptions which pay for that.

This is not actual additional money going to TU activities but is the 'opportunity cost' of allowing a TU official to act for the union in company time - sometimes these are in formal meetings with management. Most of these officials are only part-time activists, their remaining time being spent on productive work, and many still contribute substantially to the service operation of their employers.

Much union work is about personal cases (supporting individual members) and in aspects such as health and safety (most branches have safety reps who work with company H&S operatives to ensure safe working environments).

Effective trades-unionism can be beneficial to companies where small numbers of (voluntary) officials act for large numbers of staff, who don't then themselves have to worry about these concerns but can concentrate on working.

Most union work is not about major disputes, strikes or formal disagreements but about ensuring day-to-day smooth relationships between management and staff. Most union work you will never read about in the Daily Mail because it is frankly too dull and anodyne. Often unions and HR work together to curb unruly manmagement, unable or unwilling to work within either agreed processes (with unions) or in some instances the law (discrimination, sexual, racial etc. is stil commonplace within some groups of managers)

Some of the money quoted above will have been 'wasted' no doubt, but most of it probably adds to the productivity of the council rather than detracting from it.

[Penguin68]

I am not sure what the 'other' costs quoted are - but I suspect that covers the costs of management meetings with unions, cost of letters etc. to trades-unions about cases and so on.

[James Barber]

This will be the likes of shop stewards. Organisatinos are required to allow such emoployees time to perform union activities. The other costs are probably the offices they do it from.

I would imagine these costs will go down slightly as for example the teachers union officials will increasingly be representing teachers not employed by Southwark Coucnil but academies.