UK union member is ‘pioneer’

Geoff Hayward, a member of the UK’s largest union Unite, has become the first UK trade unionist to donate part of the payment he receives for his work on the supervisory board of his company to a new trade-union linked European fund.

The European Worker Participation Fund (EWPF) has been set up by the European Trade Union Institute to support employee participation through advice, publications and research. Its income comes from the remuneration paid to employees elected as board members in European Companies, who transfer the bulk of the money they receive. European Companies are a new legal form of company with a European rather than national structure, which in some cases includes employee representation at board level.

In many ways the fund is modelled on the Hans Böckler Foundation, which is financially supported by similar transfers from German trade unionists, who are present on the supervisory boards of larger German companies. However, under the rules of the EWPF only half of the money must be transferred to Europe, the rest is passed to national union bodies.

The sums involved can be substantial, amounting to tens of thousands of pounds for each representative, and Hayward, who is on the supervisory board of the insurance giant Allianz, has been described as a “pioneer” in a letter from European Trade Union Confederation general secretary John Monks.