A political dispute over public funding of activities carried out by trades-union representatives – including, potentially, those relating to health and safety – has escalated, after the prime minister described the current public subsidy to unions as morally and economically unsustainable.
Employment legislation currently requires employers to allow trades-union officials a reasonable amount of time off work to carry out their union-related duties. Union reps have legal rights to paid time off to perform their duties in areas such as health and safety, representation, informing and consulting, learning, and collective redundancy.
At last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron said the public-sector strike strengthened the case to reform the government grants given to trades unions. Asked if the situation needed to be reviewed, in light of taxpayers paying more than £113m to unions in 2010/11, in the form of paid staff time and direct grants, he replied: “I do not think full-time trade unionists working in the public sector on trades-union business, rather than serving the public, is right, and we will put that to an end.”
The prime minister’s remarks came a week after he wrote a letter of support to Aidan Burley MP, who is spearheading the Trade Union Reform Campaign (TURC) in a bid to reduce funding of trades-union activities at the public expense. He wrote: “I am pleased that you have decided to establish the TURC, as I strongly believe the current level of public subsidy to the trades unions cannot be sustained, either morally or economically.
“Few would take issue with the unions working on behalf of their members in government departments and other public bodies in their own time, or with union funding.
“However, at a time when across the private and public sectors people are having to take very difficult decisions in order to save money, it is difficult to justify some people in the public sector being paid not to do the job they are employed for but, instead, to undertake full-time trades-union activities – much of which should be funded by the unions themselves.”
While Mr Burley’s main gripe is that there should be no taxpayer subsidy for those who take time off to spend on “union activity”, as distinct from “duties”, he believes that, in the public sector at least, other individuals and bodies can fulfil union officials’ health and safety role.
Asked during a recent debate on the subject in the House of Commons whether he had considered the benefit union reps provide in identifying and preventing health and safety problems in the workplace, Mr Burley replied: “My direct answer to the honourable gentleman is to ask what he thinks the human resources department, or the Health and Safety Executive are for. Public-sector organisations have those people, so there is total duplication.”
He went on to say: “Will the Government go one step further? Employment legislation currently requires employers to make available a reasonable amount of time for trades-union representatives to carry out their duties. Will [the Government] change that so that all time taken off for trades-union activities is billed back to the union so that the taxpayer is no longer funding their work?”
Speaking to the BBC after news of the publication of the prime minister’s letter to Mr Burley broke, a spokesperson for the Public and Commercial Services Union said: “It is extraordinary he [Mr Cameron] doesn’t appear to understand how the system works, or understand that representatives – far from being a drain on the taxpayer – benefit the economy to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds a year in terms of resolving disputes, organising staff training, and being involved in health and safety arrangements.”
The positive role played by safety reps was outlined by Professor Löfstedt in his review of health and safety legislation, which was published last week. However, although the Professor highlighted that evidence “clearly shows that when employees are actively engaged in health and safety, workplaces have lower accident rates”, he made no recommendations about how the roles of safety reps could be strengthened, or funded.
