by Atul Hatwal
A fortnight on from Labour’s special conference and major change is on the agenda for Ed Miliband’s flagship party reforms.
The Labour leadership was able to secure strong backing for the Collins review from the unions largely because it delegated resolution of much of the contentious detail to a separate “implementation group”, to be set up following the special conference.
This group, comprising union and party representatives, has now been formed and outstanding questions need answers.
Immediately, problems are emerging in two areas: how the unions’ new political funds will be administered, and the role of union members in elections held before the end of the five year Collins’ process.
First, on the arrangements for the new structure of the political funds, the unions are split.
Broadly, the majority of the unions envisage a version of the Unison model.
This is where there are, in effect, two political funds: a general political fund, which is not used to fund Labour, and an affiliated or “Labour link” fund, which is used to support the party.
Where a trade unionist decides that they do not want their political fund contributions to support Labour, they all go into the general fund.
Where they want to financially support Labour, their contributions are split between the two funds.
The defining rule about the general fund is that its resources cannot be donated by the union to the Labour party.
Sounds simple.