 | Campaigning for Labour to back proportional representation |
trade unionists for voting reform |
The support of Trade Unionists is absolutely key to the success of our campaign to change the Labour Party's policy on the voting system, because the Party Conference can only vote in favour of voting reform with the support of the affiliated Trade Unions. The support of the largest affiliated Unions (Unite, Unison, the GMB) is particularly crucial - but members of smaller or unaffiliated Unions also have an important role to play, in terms of demonstrating the strength of support for electoral reform.
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What every Trade Union member can do
Arguments for trade unionists
Ask yourself, does your vote count? And if not, why not? | Useful |
Billy Hayes
“I voted to stay in the EU. I was disappointed with the referendum result - but I found the process strangely democracy-enhancing. Every person knew their vote counted. Suddenly, "one person one vote" actually meant just that. I would like to see Labour going into the 2020 election with a commitment to PR in its Manifesto, together with a commitment to other democratic reforms, including an elected House of Lords and automatic voter registration.”
Cllr Nancy Platts "Westminster’s voting system has allowed governments to form with very little popular support. In 2010, the Conservatives secured 36% of the vote – but 47% of seats. In 2015, they secured 37% of the vote – and 51% of the seats. And [in 2017] they won 44% of the vote but just a whisker-off the majority of seats.
First Past the Post could even deliver a ‘wrong winner’: in 1951 the Conservative Party won 48% of the vote to 48.8% for Labour, yet the election saw a Conservative majority. New Zealand saw two 'wrong winner' elections in a row in 1978 and 1981, setting the country on the road to electoral reform.
There has long been a campaign for Labour to back fair votes in the UK. But unions have a significant role to play as the voice of workers on the ground. Indeed, it was unions swinging behind the pro-PR movement that proved crucial in ensuring reform in New Zealand.
Trade unionists have now launched a campaign, ‘Politics for the Many’ to call on Labour and unions to back root and branch democratic reform, in the light of both the centenary of suffrage – and the urgent need for proportional representation." Read a longer version of this article in Open Democracy
Mark Serwotka “Adopting PR for future general elections would make every vote count in all parts of the country. It would force parties to change how they behave, as well as how voters cast their ballot, and stop them taking the majority for granted. PCS wants to see a more progressive politics which more closely reflects the spread of views in the public. From the Chartists pushing for universal suffrage to the Scottish TUC role campaigning for a Scottish Parliament, trade unions have often been at the forefront of demands for a better democracy that puts working people at the centre.”
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a brief History of trade unions and voting reform
After the Great Reform Act, 1832, there were moves to find representation with the Tolpuddle Martyrs and the Chartists. Since the formation of the Trade Union Congress in 1868 at the Manchester Mechanics’ Institute, many trade unionists have supported electoral reform. Voting reform was often linked with broadening the franchise, especially at first to allow men to vote and then universal franchise on equal terms.
It seems likely that early trade unionists, men and women, also supported voting reform especially such names as Annie Besant, Keir Hardie, Mary Macarthur, Eleanor Marx, Will Thorne, Benjamin Tillett were around during this debate.
Although once there was full male franchise in 1918, the fortune of the Labour Party changed. It replaced the Liberal Party in a two party system. During the Second World War Reg Underhill moved a resolution at the TUC from his trade council on electoral reform, which resurfaced at that time because Labour could not put up candidates against the Government. He was a founder member of the Association of Professional, Executive, Clerical and Computer Staff. He became Labour’s National Agent and was a member of the Plant Commission in 1990 when he supported electoral reform.
In the more recent past, affiliated trade unions have supported the debate inside the Labour Party on our voting system, supported a referendum in 1997. In 1998 before the Jenkins Commission reported, Tom Watson and Mary Southcott wrote a concordat, signed by Stephen Twigg, as LCER Chair and Ken Jackson as AEEU General Secretary, so that the critical resolution against Jenkins was remitted by Conference.
On the whole Trade Unionists were allowed a free vote on Alternative Vote in the disastrous Referendum in 2011. That was the wrong system, at the wrong time.
A few trade unions, such as TSSA and ASLEF have policy on electoral reform. But the larger affiliated trade unions, the GMB, UNISON, UNITE and USDAW have depriorised constitutional reform and failed to make the link between bread and butter issues and the voting system which elects MPs.
One unaffiliated trade union, has supported and pioneered work on voting reform, consulted its membership and required the TUC to do work on voting systems. This is the PCS. The trade union documents can be read here, https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/extras/touchstoneelectoralreform.pdf, which itself is a reworking of a previous document,
After a successful LCER fringe at the 2017 TUC Congress, organised by Billy Hayes, LCER’s Trade Union Officer, and having on the platform, Nancy Platts, now Brighton Council Leader and former advisor to Jeremy Corbyn, UNITE Deputy Leader, Howard Beckett, and Mary Southcott, LCER Parliamentary and Political Officer, the Electoral Reform Society set up a Trade Union campaign, the Politics of the Many, see https://politicsforthemany.co.uk/. |