Today, the TUC releases new research that shows the significant benefits that workplace union reps produce for employers and taxpayers.  The report also reveals serious inaccuracies in figures used by the so-called Taxpayers Alliance relating to the cost of paid time off.

“Facility Time for union reps – separating fact from fiction” not only updates the value of the savings to employers and the taxpayer that result from the work that reps do, but also reveals a significant return on investment in relation to the cost of the paid time off that reps receive.

The research, conducted for the TUC by the University of Hertfordshire’s Work and Employment Research Unit found that the total savings for employers and therefore the tax payer that result from the work union reps carry out in the PUBLIC sector equate to a value of up £586 million per annum.  This means that for every £1 spent on paid time off for union reps in the public sector (using even the disputed TPA cost estimate of £113m pa) between £2 and £5 is return in accrued benefits: a significant return on investment.

The research also reveals serious flaws in the methodology used by the so-called TPA and other organisations to estimate the alleged cost of facility time.

For example, you may have thought that those great unions such as APEX, ASTMS and MSF no longer existed? You’d be correct of course, but alleged payments to them are included in the figure calculated by the TPA.

You may be aware of the good works undertaken by organisations such as the General Medical Council, the British Orthodontic Society and the Alliance of Charters Towers State Schools. If you are, you’ll no doubt be surprised to hear them described as trade unions.  They aren’t of course, but they are included in the TPA’s dodgy figures.

And if you’ve ever heard of any of these organisations – NMC SHA, HTCC and GAB – let alone think that they’re trade unions, then you join a very small group of people (yes that’s right, the TPA).

Here at the TUC, we are trying hard NOT to believe the rumour that the TPA’s original draft also listed organisations called TTFN, OMG and LOL. 

If you strip out the alleged payments to these organisations and other inaccuracies (yes there are more) then the true “cost” of paid time off for workplace union reps comes to around £80m pa.  This increases the return on investment figure to between £3 and £9 for every £1 spent.  A return you’d struggle to get from many FTSE250 companies.

There is a serious point to this.  It appears that the TPA and their fellow travellers in TURC are so desperate to hide their ideological hatred of unions that they appear prepared to cobble together any old figures and call it research to gloss over their prejudice.

It’s a shame that the government has to waste time dealing with such people.  Instead, they should listen to employers who are of course are fully aware of the value of workplace union reps.  That’s why you will rarely, if ever, hear the TPA or TURC mention them.  But we’re happy to give the final word (for now at least) to three senior managers, all of whom (probably unlike anyone connected with the TPA and TURC) have real day to day experience of working with workplace union reps.

‘We value the partnership working that has been developed with our unions and believe that it is important staff get time to participate fully in the partnership and in staff representation roles. As a result we have been able to develop a range of effective policies, managed workforce reductions without recourse to compulsory redundancies and reduced workplace conflict’.

Nick Parker, Head of Human Resources, Airedale NHS Foundation Trust

“We greatly value the contribution made by workplace union reps at Merseytravel and the relationship that managers have with them.  We regard the cost of paid time off as an investment on which the organisation has had a significant return, reducing sickness and grievances, supporting succession planning and improvements to customer care.”

Liz Chandler, Director of Corporate Development, Merseytravel

“Newcastle City Council has sustained excellent industrial relations through an extended period of unprecedented change.  The full support of trade Unions and the involvement of workers from across the organisation has been instrumental in helping us achieve budget savings of £44m in the current financial and to develop proposal to save a further £30m next year. Many of these proposals arise from the innovation and ideas of our staff, and the contribution of Trade Union workplace reps has been an important part of that success”.

Barry Rowland, Chief Executive, Newcastle City Council

You can access the full report (pdf) here.

Jesse Norman MP. Cartoon © Alex Hughes

If I was to tell you that today, a former employee of an industry that in 2009 received a bailout from the taxpayer amounting to over £1 TRILLION (and that still owes over £450 BILLION) was to move a motion attacking volunteer workplace union reps and demanding that unions should be forced to repay employers for the time they have negotiated that allows workplace reps to represent employees and negotiate with employers, you would think I’d taken leave of my senses.

But that’s exactly what is going to happen today when Jesse Norman MP, a former Barclays Investment banker stands up and moves a 10 Minute Rule Bill in the House of Commons.

As he moves the motion Mr Norman will no doubt quote the dodgy figures provided for him by the so-called Taxpayers Alliance.  If he’s consistent in pushing the spurious narrative of the Trade Union Reform Campaign, he’ll make no mention of the benefits that result from the work undertaken by workplace reps.

Next week, the TUC will publish the results of research that will prove that paid time off for union reps is an investment not a cost and will set out the significant benefits that accrue to employers and society. The research will also explain just why the figures used by Mr Norman and the TPA shouldn’t be taken seriously.  We’ll also be highlifghting via a series of case studies the work that reps do, not just in representing employees but working with employers.

For the time being, we can only watch on in amazement at Mr Norman’s outrageous chutzpah!

So in addition to a practical “Pay Negotiators’ Tool Box” we’ll also be looking at how to challenge the fragmentation of bargaining and taking on some of the myths that are being promoted by our opponents. A good example of this sort of thing is the Chancellor’s claim in his Autumn Statement that:

“public sector pay has risen at twice the rate of private sector pay over the last four years.”

In a brilliant recent post, Alastair Hatchett of IDS (who’ll be one of the speakers at the conference) took this claim apart. In fact, the public sector was subject to tough pay constraints from 2005 on, and the fact that pay increases were higher than in the private sector was partly caused by the fact that so many public sector workers were still covered by long-term deals that weren’t seen as particularly generous when they were agreed in 2008. In the most recent period, in the 12 months to September 2011, earnings rose 1.8% in the public sector (excluding nationalised banks) and 2.4% in the private sector.

But negotiating decent pay rises and countering attempts to divide workers aren’t the only tasks for the trade union movement at the moment. We need to make the links between our day-to-day work negotiating for our members and our campaigns against austerity and for equality. That’s why the keynote speaker at the Forum will be Prof Danny Dorling, whose book Injustice is a great attack on the beliefs and prejudices that shore up support for an unfair system. Campaigning for fair employment laws, negotiating fair pay deals and lobbying to protect benefits and services are all important tasks in the fight for fairness. The Pay Bargaining Forum will combine practical advice with a reminder of the common threads that unite our work.

Well there is and it is called union health and safety representatives.

The TUC has just updated and republished its report on the effect that unions have on health and safety taking into account new research over the past six years and surprise, surprise, the new evidence shows that the Union Effect is just as strong as ever. Among the new research is a government report that claims British Industry saved between £181m and £578m each year as a result of lost time reduction from occupational injuries and work-related illnesses of between 286,000 and 616,000 days as a result of trade union representatives.

Yet in the workplace, instead of finding employers jumping over themselves to encourage union representatives and joint safety committees, health and safety representatives still find it an uphill battle to get their employers to give them access to time off or to consult them. A TUC survey of health and safety representatives showed that time off was the biggest problem for representatives, including time off for training. The survey also found that only 28% of employers automatically consulted their representatives on a frequent basis.

However despite the problems that union health and safety representatives have they still make a massive difference. The real problem is in those workplaces that are not unionised. For several years the TUC has called on the government to give workers in non-unionised workplaces the right to safety representatives and safety committees, but even better than that would be for the government and employers organisations to encourage workers in these workplaces to join a union. Unfortunately, I doubt that is going to happen so instead we are going to have to do it ourselves by using reports like “The Union Effect” to show workers that, if they value their health and their safety they need to join a union!

So use this publication in your workplace, and with any organising and recruitment activity. It really  says it all. The Union Effect can be read or downloaded at the TUC website,  and also don’t forget the report on the union advantage in other areas that the TUC produced in 2009 “The Union Advantage”.

These reps lower the accident rate by ensuring safe working practises, and reduce ill-health caused by the stress of working long hours, of being bullied, and of working in environments with poor lighting and ventilation.

LIVERPOOL at Wirral Met College

March 11 & 12, April 1 & 2, April 29 & 30

Contact Bob Kelly on 0151 237 2751 or at bob.kelly@wmc.ac.uk

BRIDGEND at Bridgend College

April 29 & 30, June 3 & 4, July 1 & 2

Contact Richard Young on 01656 302511 or at ryoung@bridgend.ac.uk

NEWCASTLE at Newcastle College

April 30 & May 1, May 21 & 22, July 9 & 10

Contact Tracey Errington on 0191 200 4823 or at tracey.errington@ncl-coll.ac.uk

GLASGOW at Stowe College

May 5 & 6, May 26 & 27, June 16 & 17

Contact Alan Richardson on 0141 564 7500 or at arichardson@stow.ac.uk

MANCHESTER at the Manchester College

May 13 & 14, June 17 & 18, July 15 & 16

Contact Kevin Duffy on 0161 279 7243 or at kduffy@themanchestercollege.ac.uk

PLYMOUTH at City College

May 14 & 15, May 28 & 29, July 2 & 3

Contact John Terry on 01752 305278 or at JTerry@cityplym.ac.uk

 

All Activist Academy courses last for 6-days and the training is linked to a workplace or branch based campaign. Participants can either bring an on-going campaign with them to the course, or develop one whilst they are on the training. 

The TUC will provide mentoring support to participants but for reps directly nominated by unions it is helpful if the union also nominates an appropriate person (rep, officer or organiser) to act as a mentor and who can assist participants in putting the skills and techniques they will cover on the training into practice on the campaign.

If you are interested in attending a course or have any reps that your union would like to nominate to any of these courses, please contact the respective college contact above.

Additional info on the Activist Academy is available at www.tuc.org.uk/activistacademy or Carl Roper on 07717 531159 or at croper@tuc.org.uk

Apparently some of the local councillors are unhappy that union facility time currently costs local taxpayers around £1.4m a year – which sounds a lot, but actually isn’t when you put it into any sort of perspective. Even a local Tory Councillor interviewed for the piece has to concede that less than 1% of the Council’s workforce are covered by these arrangements, and that some reps even (gasp, shock, horror) ‘do a good job’.

Few key points here.

First is that whatever the costs to the local council in supporting facilities and facility time its a fair bet that these are more than outweighed by the very real (and quantifable) benefits that union reps bring not just to their members, but to the employer as well. Figures in a recent BERR (Peter Mandelson’s new stomping ground) consultation document suggest that union reps are worth up to £10.2bn a year, in terms of increased productivity, to the UK economy as a whole. That’s BEFORE you add in other potential cost benefits such as reduced absenteeism and reduced workplace accidents and ill health.

Second key point I’d make is that its the law of the land for union reps to have access to reasonable paid time off to carry out their duties and train. So when Cllr Mullaney asks, ‘..should the council be paying their (union reps) wages?’, the answer is pretty much an unequivocal yes!

Last point is that underpinning these gripes seems to be a sense that local union reps are basically employed union officers who answer to no-one and do little work. While not every local rep or steward is perfect, the overwhelming majority are decent, hardworking people, elected and/or nominated by their fellow union members, to carry out an often difficult and stressful role. Many employers recognise this fact as well…I’m currently working with the CBI and BERR to develop a joint statement setting out the positive contribution of union reps in the workplace.

Cllr Mullaney’s calls for a review appear to be a simple case of union-bashing by the back door. Is this a widespread/growing trend across the public sector? Post any examples in the comments section.

But the job of being a union reps is getting busier and more difficult. The number of reps is declining, meaning that the number of members that reps support and represent is increasing.  Reps also face pressure from hostile managers and report increasing difficulty in securing sufficient facility time and time off for training.

Given that there are over 3 million workers in unionised workplaces that AREN’T members of trade unions and recent reasearch commissioned by the TUC suggests that around 2 million of these haven’t even been asked to join a union.

Stats such as these demonstrate the impact that reps and activists can make in increasing union membership, but care needs ton be taken to ensure that they sufficient support and resources in doing this and that organising and recruitment isn’t seen as just another job that already hard pressed and under resourced reps are being asked to do.

Supporting reps in organising and recruitment activity will be one of the main focuses of the work of the Organising and Recruitment team over the next year.  The Activist Academy is being launched at Congress and there will be more work around the Bargaining to Organise campaign, amongst other things.

To kick things off, the TUC has just published a new guide – ORGANISING AT WORK: BUILDING STRONGER UNIONS IN THE WORKPLACE - to help workplace union reps and activists reaffirm, rebuild and revitalise the union where they work.  The guide contains a range of ideas to help build union strength, improve the unions relevance and effectiveness and get more members involved in union activity.

The guide can be downloaded here.