Trade unions’ political spend rockets

The 28 unions with political funds spent £26.5 million in 2010-11 — a 49% rise on the previous year when 29 unions spent £17.8 million.

Five unions spent over £1 million in the period covered by the annual report of the union watchdog the Certification Officer and four of the five increased their spend considerably. The Unite general union topped the big spenders almost doubling its spend on political activities, including its affiliation fee to the Labour Party, to £9.2 million from £4.7 million the year before.

Public services union UNISON took second spot with £6.7 million (£4.5 million the previous year), while the GMB general union spent £3.7 million (£2.2 million). The shop and distribution workers’ union Usdaw spent £2.5 million (£1.6 million) and the CWU communication workers’ union had a £1.1 million spend (£954,617).

Total income for the 28 political funds rose by just 3.5% to £22.8 million against just over £22 million the year before for 29 unions.

The numbers of members contributing to the political funds of the 28 unions showed a small decrease of around 10,000 but was still over the 4.4 million mark.

The numbers of unions with political funds went down by one over the two-year period as Connect, the union for professionals in communications, merged with Prospect.

www.certoffice.org/CertificationOfficer/files/1c/1c9b8633-3611-4a3c-b55e-23fad475d2e3.pdf