TURC

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The Evening Standard has a trail of our launch event tonight, with a speech by Eric Pickles the Secretary of State for Local Government:

Councils may be ordered to publish details of how much taxpayers’ money they are spending on salaries and buildings for trade union officials, the Standard has learned. Communities Secretary Eric Pickles wants to bring in binding rules to open up the books after estimates that public bodies are spending £113 million a year on staff working on trade union activities.

In a speech tonight, Mr Pickles will accuse Labour authorities of “waging class war with public funds” by giving an effective subsidy to unions that are opposed to government policies.

Mr Pickles will say: “The public want their council tax frozen and their bins emptied every week. They don’t want it spent on trade unions’ political campaigning. It’s not right that the public’s money is covertly being used to bankroll union activists. They are diverting resources away from frontline services, waging class war with public funds.” He will speak at the launch of Trade Union Reform Campaign tonight at the Commons, a pressure group formed by Tory MPs to campaign for a crackdown. Calling for an end to “these non-jobs on the rates”, Mr Pickles will add: “Public sector workers need proper information about the political levy many are unwittingly paying.”

We loved the Morning Star’s reaction too:

Today’s Evening Standard reports:

A new row over taxpayer-funded union officials broke out today as a cash-strapped London council admitted paying more than £300,000 to a National Union of Teachers official.

Julie Davies, who is involved in campaigning against the Government’s school reforms, has not taught since 2000 when she became a five-days-a-week representative of the NUT.

But Haringey council continues to pay her between £35,000 and £45,000 as an English teacher at Northumberland Park Community School. She is among hundreds of public sector staff across Britain paid from the tax purse to carry out union activities under local agreements.

Conservative MPs called it a waste of cash by a council that has complained about spending cuts. Last year it ordered £84 million cuts out of a budget of £273 million, shedding 1,000 jobs. It has the worst primary school results in inner London, with English and maths scores sliding recently.

Enfield North Tory MP Nick de Bois said: “This is a scandalous waste of tax-payer’s money. With priorities skewed in this way, it’s no wonder Labour-run Haringey has consistently failed to deliver improvements to its schools.”

Let us know about other taxpayer funded trade union activists you discover.

The Trade Union Reform Campaign has already secured significant Parliamentary support for the aims of ending public subsidy to the Trade Union Movement: we have already assisted with two 10 Minute Rule Bills, two Early Day Motions and countless Parliamentary Questions. From the outset we recognised that a strong role in Parliament was vital to delivering an end to Trade Union subsidies, described as immoral and unethical by the Prime Minister.

In order to secure this we are establishing a Parliamentary Council across both houses. We are proud to announce our House of Commons members and will be announcing our group in the Lords in the coming weeks. The TURC Chairman Aidan Burley and CEO Mark Clark are pleased to announce that the following Members of Parliament have joined:

Caroline Dinenage
Karen Bradley
Fiona Bruce
Nigel Adams
Liam Fox
Stuart Andrew
Alec Shelbrooke
David Morris
Dominic Raab.

These MP come from diverse backgrounds, are at various stages of their careers and represent constituencies right across the country. We believe this strong team will enable us to take forward a positive agenda in Parliament and in the media.

Many MPs and Peers support the Trade Unions and recieve donations from them, TURC does not pay, fund or offer expenses to any of our Parliamentary Council. Each member has joined as a result of a genuine committment to protecting taxpayers from paying for these unfair subsidies. We are very proud to have their support and guidance.

Yesterday Hereford and South Herefordshire Member of Parliament Jesse Norman tabled a Ten Minute Rule Bill in the House of Commons, calling for and end to taxpayers’ money being used to fund Trade Union activities and for money already spent to be returned. You can read his excellent speech here or watch it below.

Union backed Labour MP’s clubbed together to block the Ten Minute Rule Bill being brought as a full Bill before the House of Commons.

You can read about the debate and result from the BBC here and Guido Fawkes blog here.

Conservative MP Priti Patel has put together a dossier of evidence that reveals the tip of the iceberg in terms of abuse of taxpayer funded trade union facilities time. She has handed the dossier in to Downing Street and it was reported in yesterday’s Sunday Express:

“…unions are “pushing the boundaries”, using facility time for campaigning and recruiting purposes. A guide published by Unison for its union officials states a “key task” must be “to get as many activities as possible covered by your paid facility time allowance. The more reps we have, the more widely spread they are and the more facility time they have, the greater and wider will be our influence and the stronger we will be.”

The defence sector of the civil service PCS union has instructed officials to use the remaining 25 days of paid facility time “for recruitment, an area where the union needs as much effort as possible”.

Another area of concern is the use of facilities for union purposes. Camden Council in north London, which over the next four years plans to axe 970 staff, shut centres for the elderly and for children, has handed a building rent-free to Unison officials who are now using it is a base to run an anti-cuts campaign.

In one year the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills gave unions £21.5million to pay for 170 staff to promote learning. A further £7million was spent by the Skills Funding Agency to pay for trade union representatives to gain diplomas and go on courses teaching them how to campaign more effectively.

MS PATEL said: “When unemployment is rising this money would be far more effectively spent on providing thousands of new apprenticeship places and on education and training for those in need.”

The Telegraph yesterday also reported that the promised government consultation on trade union funding is set to begin in the new year. It also reported that a further 250 taxpayer funded “pilgrims” have been smoked out in the civil service. That’s another £5m that instead of being invested in jobs and growth, is going into the pockets of the union fat cats…

Speaking on the Daily Politics today, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Rachel Reeves confirmed her support for union ‘pilgrims’ – trade union representatives paid for by the taxpayer.

Aidan Burley, Conservative MP for Cannock Chase and co-founder of the Trade Union Reform Campaign, said:

“It is hardly surprising that Rachel Reeves defends trade union pilgrims, especially when her Party, locally and nationally, are utterly reliant on union money.

“Labour’s support for taxing hard working families to pay for trade union activism shows just how out of touch Labour are.”

The BBC’s Daily Politics did a long feature today on Pilgrims – taxpayer-funded trade-unionists – that featured our Chairman Aidan Burley MP:

Labour’s Rachel Reeves failed to properly defend the practice and even tried to deceive about her own union funding.