The Trade Union Act 1984: Political Fund Ballots1
| Published date | 01 November 1986 |
| Date | 01 November 1986 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1986.tb00694.x |
| Author | Mairi Steele,John Gennard,Kenneth Miller |
British Journal
of
Industrial Relations
24:3
November
1986
0007-1080
$3.00
The
Trade
Union
Act,
1984:
Political
Fund
Ballots'
Mairi Steele,
*
Kenneth Miller** and
John
Gennard***
1.
INTRODUCTION
The Trade Union Act 1913 has provided the framework for the legal
regulation of expenditure by trade unions on political objects. The Act was
originally passed to permit unions to maintain a political fund in the wake
of
the decision
of
the House of Lords in
Amalgamated Society
of
Railway
Servants
v.
Osborne2
that such funds were unlawful under the Trade Union
Act 1871. The 1913 Act demands that a union must conduct a ballot of its
members on a resolution to create a political fund. Only if the majority
of
those voting, vote in favour
of
the fesolution can such a fund be created. The
Act also requires that the political fund be administered separately from the
other assets
of
the union and that those who do not wish to contribute to it
are permitted to contract-out. If a political fund is created it is up to those
contributing to it to determine how the money is spent, including the
decision over affiliation to a political party. Those members who choose to
become exempt must not be put at any disability or disadvantage by the
union except in relation to the control and management of the policital fund.
The supervision of union political funds is in the hands of the Certification
Officer who not only approves a union's political fund rules and polices the
conduct of the ballots, but also hears complaints from members who
feel
that their union has either broken its political fund rules,3 or has put them at
a disadvantage because they are exempt members. This scheme, sanctioned
by the 1913 Act, has operated for over seventy years and save for the period
between 1927 and 1946 when members were required to take positive steps
to subscribe
to
a political fund,4 the statutory framework has remained
unaltered.
Part I11 of the Trade Union Act 1984, now places further obligations
on
*Research Assistant, Law School and Industrial Relations Department, University
of
Strathclyde.
**Lecturer in Law, Law School, University
of
Strathclyde.
***Professor
of
Industrial Relations, University
of
Strathclyde.
444
British
Journal
of
Industrial Relations
any trade union which wishes to maintain a political fund. First, it requires
that the continuation of a union’s political fund be approved at least every
ten years in a secret ballot of the members and reinforces the series
of
requirements which political fund ballots must satisfy, for example,
balloting must be in secret and without interference or constraint. Second, it
makes clear that nothing may be paid into the political fund other than
contributions by members, gifts, donations and income which accrues from
the fund’s assets. The Act forbids any assets, including overdrafts from
banks or loans from other funds of the union, other than those of the
political fund to be used to discharge any political fund deficit. Third, the
1984
Act provides that if any individual wishes to contract out
of
paying the
political levy it must become effective immediately and not at some future
date more convenient to the union’s and/or the employer’s administrative
procedure^.^
Fourth, it also redrafts the definition of political objects, and
lays down what a union must do with its fund in the event of it losing
authority to spend on such objects.6 It is the purpose
of
this article,
to
explain why the
1984
Act provisions were introduced, to analyse why all the
review ballots were successfully carried and
to
consider the implications and
significance of the results.
2.
POLITICAL PRESSURES FOR CHANGE
(a)
Government concerns
Concern about the operation
of
the
1913
Act was not new. Both the Society
of Conservative Lawyers and
Mr
Robert Carr (later Secretary of State for
Employment
1970-1973)
expressed concern about the operation of political
fund rules and, in particular, contracting-out provisions, to the Donovan
Commission which reported in
196tL7
However, it was the present
Conservative Government, supported in part by the Alliance parties, which
expressed the most profound objections to the
1913
arrangements and
sought to remedy what they perceived as fundamental flaws in those
arrangements. As part of
its
commitment
‘to
give the unions back to their
members’ the Government enacted Part
I11
of
the
1984
Trade Union Act. In
so
doing it gave union members a say in whether they wished their union to
maintain a political fund.
The Government’s concerns about the operation of union political fund
rules were spelled out in its Green Paper, entitled
Democracy in
Trade
Unions’
and published in
1983.
Taking this document together with
statements made by ministers during parliamentary debates on the
1984
Act
at least four arguments in favour of change
to
the
1913
rules were identified.
The first two referred to the operation of the contracting-out rules, the third
to
the definition of political objects, and the fourth to balloting rules. The
Green Paper observed considerable disparities between unions in the
number of members paying the political levy.’ It argued that for various
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