Trade Unions
Ending centralised pay bargaining is a very good idea
This morning the Daily Telegraph reports that centralised pay bargaining for many public sector workers may be abolished at the Budget. That would be right for taxpayers; right for public sector workers; and mean better public services. The people who would lose out would be the union bosses who rely on big national battles over [...] Read the rest of this entry »
The most fatuous defence yet of taxpayer-funded full-time union reps
Last week I blogged about the true extent to which council tax payers in Peterborough are funding Rona Hendry and Mark Burn, the two full-time UNISON activists at the city’s council. Between them, the duo – who are Secretary and Assistant Secretary respectively of the UNISON branch – are costing hard-pressed Peterborough residents in excess [...] Read the rest of this entry »
The most fatuous defence yet of taxpayer-funded full-time union reps
Last week I blogged about the true extent to which council tax payers in Peterborough are funding Rona Hendry and Mark Burn, the two full-time UNISON activists at the city’s council. Between them, the duo – who are Secretary and Assistant Secretary respectively of the UNISON branch – are costing hard-pressed Peterborough residents in excess [...] Read the rest of this entry »
Peterborough residents discover the true extent to which they are funding the trade unions
Peterborough City Council has been on the TPA radar of late because of their plan to increase council tax by 2.95% each year for the next five years. Senior Tory councillor David Seaton was awarded our “Pinhead of the Month” gong for January in recognition of his efforts to increase the burden on his local [...] Read the rest of this entry »
UNISON response to council pensions report
Today we have released a report on council pension contributions, you can read it in full here. We found that council employer pension contributions were equivalent to £1 in every £5 of council tax receipts in 2010-11. UNISON issued a lazy response to this earlier, strewn with factual errors. They claim that: Actually, the local [...] Read the rest of this entry »
Misleading TUC report on union facility time
Last year TaxPayers’ Alliance research revealed that 2,840 full time equivalent public sector staff were working for the unions, instead of front line services. Today the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has released a new study looking at facility time, arguing that it provides benefits in excess of the costs to taxpayers. There is no genuinely [...] Read the rest of this entry »
TaxPayers’ Alliance campaign to end taxpayer funding of trade unions gathers momentum
The campaign to end taxpayer funding of trade unions, building on pioneering TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) research, is gathering momentum as it is again raised in a major House of Commons debate. After PMQs today Jesse Norman MP (Hereford and South Herefordshire) is bringing a motion for a Bill to end the practice. In 2010 the [...] Read the rest of this entry »
Pressure continues to grow for action to cut taxpayer funding of trade unions
A new dossier of evidence demonstrating how trade unions are abusing the subsidies they get from the taxpayer has today been published by Witham MP, Priti Patel. Citing our recent research note, Taxpayer funding of trade unions 2011, Ms Patel’s dossier – as previewed over the weekend in the Sunday Express – makes the case [...] Read the rest of this entry »
David Cameron challenged at strike day PMQs about TPA report on taxpayer funding of trade unions
There has already been much publicity in the media for our report last week into Taxpayer funding of trade unions. We found that at least £113 million of taxpayers’ money was last year given to trade unions either in direct grants or through taxpayer-subsidised “facility time” – and we believe that it should be stopped. [...] Read the rest of this entry »
Today’s strike and pension myths
The strike today has been called the “largest coordinated action ever seen in the UK” by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS). The unions claim nearly 3 million public sector staff are not at work today, but the paltry number of strikers outside government department buildings in Westminster this morning doesn’t quite give you [...] Read the rest of this entry »
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