Funding union reps ‘costing taxpayers millions of pounds’

MILLIONS of pounds of pounds in taxpayers’ cash is being used to fund the work of union reps in workplaces across the country, figures obtained by The Scotsman show.

Union leaders insist their presence in the workplace is saving employers about £700 million a year across the UK, through better trained and more productive workforces.

But the money for reps across Scotland’s public bodies has been described as “unacceptable and antiquated” by opposition leaders, who insist unions should be paying for their own activities.

“It dates back to the days when trade unions were very dominant and enforced their views on the rest of us without asking the question first,” Conservative MSP Alex Johnstone said yesterday.

“When trade union members jobs are under threat due to the lack of resources available, it’s unacceptable that public money should be going into that.”

About £2.8m was paid out in 2010-11 across Scotland’s public sector to fund union facility time, which sees staff work for their unions instead of on their normal jobs, a freedom of information request has shown.

Almost £2m is being paid out by councils alone, according the figures. The biggest payout was in Edinburgh where 13 staff work on facility duty at a cost of £409,000. Across the public sector there were 73 reps who spent all their time in the workplace devoted to union duties.

A full-time union rep on a council could spend a day negotiating with senior council officers and councillors on behalf of the thousands of union members in each authority.

Discussions over pay and conditions, the market testing of council services and advising the council on equality and employment matters, are among the other issues they could deal with. They could also be supporting union members who are being made redundant, or facing a disciplinary, or who have raised whistleblower-type concerns.

But Mr Johnstone added: “I would like to see the trades unions justify the role and if they can, volunteer to take a significant role in the funding of it.

“At the moment it’s absolutely essential that we get the maximum return from the limited public money that’s available. I don’t see this as being an effective use of that resource.”

But a report issued today by the TUC finds that the presence of unions in workplaces could be saving employers in the private and public sectors as much £701m a year – or £2m a day.

It says that in workplaces where there are union reps negotiating on behalf of their colleagues, there are significant cost savings to be had. More productive and better trained workforces, along with fewer cases taken to employment tribunals are among the benefits. Staff are also less likely to leave, meaning less is spent on recruitment.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “The highly exaggerated and wholly inaccurate figures being bandied around are supposedly borne out of a desire to save money. In reality they are nothing more than a thinly-veiled attack on unions.”