American Unions Not the Only Unions with Bad Leadership
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I’m on a two week trip to London and Ireland (yes, there will be UK graves and no, grave donations did not pay for them, not sure that the $20 a month I’m getting these days quite sent me here….) and so am getting more European labor news than usually. In the U.S., the quality of union leadership is a mixed bag. I suppose that’s inevitable in a sense, but you’d like it to be better. But the truth of the matter is that anytime money and power are involved, humans are likely to be tempted by corruption. That can lead to outright indifference to your own workers. And thus, here’s a really not great story from the UK labor movement.
One of the world’s best-paid trade union officials has been challenged over union-busting allegations as his workforce face losing their jobs.
In June, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) announced a cost-saving restructure which involves getting rid of 25% of its staff, putting around 50 roles at risk of redundancy. Every single rep for the ITF’s Unite branch is at risk. The ITF denies targeting union reps.
The ITF is a federation of hundreds of unions and represents 16.5 million workers around the world. Major British unions such as the RMT, Unite, ASLEF, GMB, PCS and TSSA are affiliated to the ITF. A French trade union has threatened to pull out of the federation if any cases of union busting are proven.
In July, workers from the ITF’s Unite branch lodged a complaint to Stephen Cotton, ITF general secretary. Workers wrote: “A hugely disproportionate impact of the proposed cuts falls on current or former union representatives, so much so as to amount to potential trade union victimisation.
“Our review of management’s proposed changes indicates that 100% of current or former union representatives in scope of the restructure have been placed at risk of redundancy … Ordinary members of the union who have been especially vocal – for example by posing challenging questions to leadership during recent all-staff meetings – have also been put at genuine risk of redundancy.”
Workers voted to strike over the proposed redundancies in July, but postponed the strikes as negotiations started.
Cotton is paid over £300,000 a year, likely making him one of the best-paid union general secretaries in the world. Often seen wearing a Rolex watch, Cotton has washed his hands of the redundancies. These are instead being handled by assistant general secretary Rob Johnston, who was caught up in a ballot-fixing scandal in 2002 when he worked at the Amicus union, which was Labour’s biggest donor at the time.
The Rolex is a great touch. At least Jimmy Hoffa had the class to not be personally corrupt and in fact lived in modest circumstances.