For the fourth time, union members are going to vote for or against the maintenance of unions’ political funds is now taking place. Indeed, the Trade Union Act 1984 requires a union to ballot its members on the continuation of its political fund every 10 years. Since the 1980s, all unions voted for retention. The 2010s looks like being a continuation of this trend. This round of balloting takes places under the conditions of a Tory-dominated coalition and a desire to see Labour returned to office by many unions.
From 1913 until 1984 to use their resources for political purposes, unions were lawfully required to ballot members to establish political objects as part of their rules and to maintain separate political funds in order to do this. Only unions with political funds could use these to support political parties.
In 1984, this legislation was extended by the Conservative government to require decadal review ballots on maintaining these funds and the definition of political activity was changed so that this potentially restricted the ability of unions without political funds to campaign on issues affecting them which were the result of government policy.
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