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At each level of the Party structure –constituency, regional, and national – external organisations can ‘affiliate’ to the Party. These other organisations include socialist societies, co-operative societies and Trade Unions. The affiliates are as much a part of the Labour Party as the Party’s own internal units.
It is important to understand how Trade Unions affiliate to the Party. Affiliation, quite simply, is a union paying a fee for notional membership of the Party and in return receiving similar rights to the Party’s own internal units (the CLPs) in terms of direct input into policy-making.
For a union to affiliate nationally, it pays £3 from its political fund for each member that it wishes to affiliate. This is much like a CLP paying a proportion of each of its member’s subscriptions to the national Party. The affiliated union – again, like a CLP - is then entitled to send 1 delegate per 5000 affiliated members to National Party Conference and submit a motion or constitutional amendment to the conference.
The 16 trade unions affiliated to the Party do so on the basis of the
following numbers:
Union |
2007 |
2006 |
2005 |
Unite - Amicus |
630,100 |
630,100 |
641,100 |
UNISON |
500,000 |
500,000 |
570,000 |
GMB |
400,000 |
400,000 |
400,000 |
Unite - TGWU |
400,000 |
400,000 |
400,000 |
USDAW |
323,549 |
323,652 |
314,143 |
CWU |
210,000 |
210,000 |
210,000 |
Community |
55,246 |
55,246 |
55,246 |
UCATT |
51,000 |
51,000 |
51,000 |
TSSA |
27,653 |
27,653 |
28,030 |
ASLEF |
15,500 |
15,500 |
15,500 |
MU |
10,500 |
10,500 |
10,500 |
BECTU |
7,310 |
7,310 |
8,000 |
BFAWU |
5,100 |
5,100 |
5,100 |
NUM |
1,813 |
1,813 |
1,813 |
Unity |
1,000 |
1,000 |
1,000 |
NACODS |
410 |
410 |
450 |
The total affiliation figure for 2007 is 2,639,181.
Under current rules, the affiliated organisations account for 50% of the total votes at Conference – the Constituencies cast the other 50%. Within the affiliate’s 50%, each trade union is apportioned a share based on the number of members it affiliates. The share each union gets is then split evenly among that union’s delegates to Conference.
An affiliated union can also make nominations for Leader and Deputy Leader of the Party. Individual union members who make a declaration that they support Labour get a vote in the ballot to decide the Party leader. Their votes are cast in the affiliate section of the Electoral College – accounting for 30% of the total vote.
The regional offices of nationally affiliated trade unions can also affiliate to the Party at regional level. Unions pay 12.5p from the Political Fund for each member affiliated to the Party at regional level. The affiliated union can then participate in regional conferences and elections alongside the CLP’s.
Trade union branches or regions can affiliate to CLPs if they have members who are registered to vote or who reside in the geographic area of the CLP. Unions affiliate to CLPs at the rate of 6p from the Political Fund per member - but with a minimum of £6. An affiliated trade union can send up to five delegates to the Committee, although if the union has more than 1000 members living in the CLP, the regional director can vary this limit.
Alternatively, a workplace branch of the Party itself can be created. A workplace branch would send delegates to the General Committee of the CLP like any other branch. Workplace branches and trade unions affiliated to CLPs get the same rights as a normal branch of the Constituency in ‘trigger ballots’ for selections and can contribute to the day to day running of the Constituency – its organisation and its discussions – through their delegates. It is clear that through the Party’s federal structure and the process of affiliation at the various levels of that structure that the affiliated trade unions are an integral part of the party.
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