UK Trade Unions Accused of ‘Bribing’ Striking Workers, Plotting ‘Dangerous’ Summer of Chaos
07:51 GMT 19.06.2022 (Updated: 15:19 GMT 28.05.2023)
© AFP 2023 / NIKLAS HALLE'N
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Leaders of Britain’s biggest trade unions - Unite and Unison - threatened nationwide strikes last week “to protect public services". Unison general-secretary, Christina McAnea, accused the Government of being “corrupt and out of touch”.
The UK’s biggest trade unions have been accused of “bribing” workers to take part in industrial action from ostensibly vast “strike funds”, according to The Sunday Telegraph.
Several unions threatening strikes this summer have been offering tax-free payments, UK Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng was cited as saying.
“It’s obvious that trade union chiefs have been quietly amassing a war chest effectively to bribe workers into unleashing a summer of strike chaos,” he warned.
Both Unite and Unison, two of the largest trade unions in the country, whose leaders threatened nationwide strikes last week “to protect public services”, have doubled their daily strike payments since 2019, according to the publication.
Workers have had enough. The trade union movement needs to be reborn. We need to act together. Watch Unite General Secretary, Sharon Graham, speak live from the We #DemandBetter march and rally. https://t.co/V82iM4OSXi
— Unite the union: join a union (@unitetheunion) June 18, 2022
Unison, the largest of the country's labour unions, is an affiliate of the Trades Union Congress, the national organisation of British trade unions. Unison's more than 1.3 million members are employed in the public sector and in private-sector jobs that provide public services. Unison's recent financial statements show it increased the strike payment “from £25 a day to £50, payable from Day One [of a strike] rather than Day Four”, last year, saying that it helps put the union “in the best possible position to win disputes”.
On Saturday 18 June, we’ll be taking to the streets to demand action on the cost of living – a new deal for working people, and a pay rise for all workers. Join us #DemandBetter
— UNISON - UK's largest union (@unisontheunion) May 18, 2022
Info: https://t.co/ElUAKZaPg4@The_TUC pic.twitter.com/Oz26IrUNoR
According to its accounts, the trade union body had a “strike fund reserve” of £34.2 million as of December.
Unite the Union, commonly known as Unite, is a British and Irish trade union formed in 2007. Led by its general-secretary Sharon Graham, it is the second-largest trade union in the UK, with more than 1.2 million members across the construction, manufacturing, transport, logistics, and other sectors. The union which has threatened strikes in councils and across bus networks has been putting up posters in local government buildings, advertising “£70 a day strike pay”, reported the publication.
Unite has a strike fund of at least £35 million, according to the report.
According to the unions, strike payments serve to compensate workers who lose pay when they take part in industrial action.
“When workers take the difficult decision to strike they lose pay and rely on support from union strike funds to feed their families,” said a TUC spokesman.
However, this reported doubling of some strike payments has triggered suspicions among ministers.
Kwarteng suggested the figures showed that “militant trade unions” had been “plotting” action well in advance.
“It’s clear they’ve been plotting this for some time. Looking at the figures, this plan of theirs is designed to inflict maximum damage on millions of people for as long as possible,” he said.
This comes as more than 40,000 staff have been gearing up for a three-day strike on 21, 23 and 25 June, expected to cripple large swathes of the UK's train network. The RMT (Rail, Maritime and Transport) union said it was "unacceptable for railway workers either to lose their job or face another year of pay freeze" in an environment where inflation has reached 40-year highs.
According to reports, teachers are also planning to march to demand better pay and conditions, with the Teachers' Union, NASUWT, saying the value of their salary nosedived by 19 percent over the past 12 years.
At a Trades Union Congress rally in central London on Saturday, the RMT union urged other unions to take part in “coordinated action”.
“If we have to, we will strike, to protect public service workers and the public services we all depend on,” said McAnea, general-secretary of Unison, as she slammed Boris Johnson's “out of touch” government over the cost-of-living crisis while speaking at the union’s annual conference in Brighton.
“We are witnessing the dying days of a corrupt and out of touch Government. A Government that’s hanging onto power, but out of ideas,” said McAnea.
Great video from new rep Stacy Meek taking part in the TUC national protest march in London today after spending the week with us at conference a credit to the branch #TogetherWeRise #Unison pic.twitter.com/5BLP9wk5AV
— Unison Humberside Police Staff Branch (@UnisonHumbpol) June 18, 2022
In the face of this industrial action onslaught, Kwarteng is preparing to increase the maximum amount of money that firms can claim in damages from unions participating in illegal strikes from £250,000 to £1 million.
According to Grant Shapps, the UK Transport Secretary, the RMT’s planned strikes would be “punishing millions of innocent people”.
The Transport Secretary earlier told The Sunday Telegraph that under new legal changes, agency workers could be brought in to break strikes and protect the public from being "held to ransom" by the industrial action.
The planned changes will ditch a legal restriction introduced under the premiership of Tony Blair that prevents employers from hiring agency staff to carry out the work of staff on strike. According to Shapps, the measures "would come in during this particular dispute, if it can't be resolved".
Responding to reports of “war chests” being readied in advance by the unions to gear up for strikes, a Unison spokesman said:
“This is utter nonsense. Last year the Government was full of praise for key workers for their pandemic efforts. Now ministers are trying to start a fight with the same low-paid healthcare and council staff.”
A Unite spokesman echoed these sentiments, saying:
“We want to build the strength of the union to ensure workers are not forced to pay the price of the pandemic. Unite’s strike fund has grown in recent years to ensure our members have adequate financial protection if, as a last resort, they are forced to take strike action. The idea that this is part of some massive, coordinated union plot is the stuff of fantasy.”
