FACT S E R V I C E
193 Rich are bankrolling Cameron's Tory Party
194 Chancellor hits public sector workers
TUC seals tie up with Ruskin College
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Rich are bankrolling
Cameron's Tory Party
Rich individuals have been signing big personal
cheques over to the Conservative Party, latest
figures from the political watchdog, the Electoral
Commission, show.
Ninety eight individuals handed over a total of
£2,541,145 to Conservative Central Office (CCO)
in the third quarter of 2009, a Fact Service analysis
of commission figures show.
Donations from rich individuals accounted for 48
pence in every £1 received by CCO in the third
quarter of the year. In total, CCO received £5.3
million from all sources in the quarter.
City money dominated with £252,000 given by
hedge fund manager Michael Farmer. Property
magnates David Rowland and Chaim Poju Zabludo-
wicz gave £140,000 and £100,000 respectively.
Thirty-eight companies gave a total of £1,169,067 or
22 pence in every £1 received.
IM Properties, part of long-time Tory supporter Rob-
ert Edmiston’s business empire, gave £250,000 and
the construction equipment dynasty, the Bamfords,
gave £130,000 through their JCB Research company.
LABOUR RESEARCH DEPARTMENT
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195 Poverty was on the rise before the recession
Guide shows benefits of being in a union
196 Will pay lag behind inflation next year?
Blacklisting is to be outlawed by early 2010
Volume 71, Issue 49, 10 December 2009
Once again it was the taxpayer who helped out
considerably to the party’s fortunes. Three tranches
of public money totalled £1,283,884 or 24 pence in
every £1 received by CCO. The money came mainly
through the so-called “Short money” and “Cranborne
money” from the Houses of Commons and Lords
respectively, which is public money to help the op-
position parties in Parliament.
There were two donations from Conservative Party
lotteries which came to £314,500.
For Labour Party headquarters, the unions were by
far the largest provider of income with 12 unions giv-
ing a total of £2,154,574 (see table). That sum, which
included affiliation fees, donations and sponsor-
ship, accounted for 90 pence in every £1 received
at the party's Victoria Street HQ. In total £2.4 million
was received by the party from all sources.
Eleven companies gave £78,225 in total — mostly
in the form of sponsorship. Company donations
accounted for five pence in every £1 received at
the party centrally.
The party attracted just seven donations totalling
£78,225 from individuals accounting for three
pence in every £1 received.
Public money — £36,340 from the Scottish Parlia-
ment — accounted for two pence in every £1, while
there was just £5,924 from other sources.
194 Fact Service Volume 71 Issue 49

Union £ public sector spending and capping public sec-

ASLEF (rail) 11,363 tor pay, the PCS civil servants' union said in its
BFAWU (bakers) 7,645 response to the report.
BECTU (media) 5,425
CWU (post and telecoms) 198,881
Community (steel, textiles, betting) 25,898 The attack on public sector workers came as the
GMB (general) 8,600 chancellor announced that public sector borrowing
Musicians' Union 9,238
TSSA (transport) 18,773
in 2009-10 would now be £3 billion higher at £178
UCATT (construction) 74,200 billion. That figure would reduce to £176 billion next
Usdaw (shops and distribution) 281,955 year, £140 billion in 2011-12 before falling further to
UNISON (public services) 735,070
Unite (general) 1 777,526
£96 billion in 2013-14. The budget deficit would be
halved by 2013-14, according to the chancellor.
Total 2,154,574

Excludes donations to Constituency Labour Parties, and other party organisa- Taxation National insurance contributions are to
tions rise by a further 0.5% from April 2011 (making it a
1
Includes Amicus and T&G sections
1% rise in total). Meanwhile, VAT will return to 17.5%
from 1 January 2010 and the stamp duty holiday on
The Liberal Democrats received just £321,289 at its
Cowley Street HQ, London, in the third quarter. certain properties will end on the same date.

Four companies gave a total of £248,300, but
£205,000 of that came from the political reform
group, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. Com-
pany donations accounted for 77 pence in every
£1 received at headquarters.
Six individuals gave a total of £42,125 or 13 pence in
every £1 received; and there was £30,864 in public
money or 10 pence in every £1.
http://registers.electoralcommission.org.uk/regulatory-issues/regdpoliticalparties.
cfm
There is to be a one-off 50% tax on bank bonuses
of more than £25,000.
Benefits The basic state pension will rise by 2.5%
in April 2010 giving a single pensioner the princely
sum of an extra £2.40 a week as their pension rises
to £97.65 a week.
Benefits normally uprated by the rise in the Retail
Prices Index will rise by 1.5% next April even
though the previous September figure usually used
was a negative one.

Economy The Treasury now expects the economy

Chancellor hits public
sector workers
Chancellor Alistair Darling has used the public
sector workforce as the whipping boy for the fail-
ures in the banking system and the subsequent
taxpayers’ bail out.
In his Pre-Budget Report, the chancellor said all
public sector pay settlements were to be capped
at 1% for two years. Contributions to public sector
pensions were to be cut by £1 billion a year.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “A
centralised pay cap on public sector staff is unfair,
inefficient and will damage long-established inde-
pendent review systems — which already take afford-
ability into account. Public sector workers — many
of whom are low paid — should not have to pay the
price for a crash they did nothing to cause.”
The government should be focusing more on tack-
ling the £100 billion plus of uncollected, evaded
and avoided tax instead of talking about slashing
to shrink by 4.75% this year, much worse than the
3.5% forecast in the April Budget. Nevertheless,
the chancellor is sticking to his guns and expects
the recovery to arrive next year with growth of 1%-
1.5% as forecast in April with 3.25%-3.75% growth
in each of the following two years.
www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/prebud_pbr09_index.htm
www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-17338-f0.cfm
www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/news_centre/index.cfm/id/5DBA6FAA-6150-
4F01-90AB1F3ECCFBA2A6
TUC seals tie up with
Ruskin College
The TUC has signed an agreement signalling
closer working between its Organising Academy
and Oxford-based Ruskin College.
Since 1899 Ruskin has been making university level
education accessible to the working classes and
this agreement will see it putting on a number of
courses for recruits to the 2010 Academy.
Volume 71 Issue 49 Fact Service
The TUC’s Organising Academy was set up in 1998
to help unions reach out to recruit new members
and organise a union presence in workplaces
where unions have previously had no influence.
Paul Nowak, TUC head of organisation and serv-
ices, said that over the past 11 years, the Organising
Academy had helped thousands of union officers
and organisers develop the skills needed to meet
the organising challenge. These organisers had
then gone on to take the union message of fair-
ness, equality and decent work out to thousands
of workplaces.
“The partnership with Ruskin College,” Novak
said, “will allow us to continue to develop a first
class training programme, aimed at demonstrat-
ing unions are relevant in the 21st century and
ensuring working people in the UK get a good
deal at work.”
www.tuc.org.uk/organisation/tuc-17330-f0.cfm
Poverty was on the rise
before the recession
Levels of poverty, unemployment and repossessions
in the UK started rising as early as 2004, long before
the recession began, according to the social justice
group, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).
The findings mean that in order to reduce the
number of people living in poverty by any serious
margin, the UK needs to recover not just from the
recession, but from the deep-seated problems that
were re-emerging before the downturn.
Monitoring poverty and social exclusion, produced
by the New Policy Institute, is the JRF’s annual as-
sessment of poverty in the UK. Built around a set of
indicators and constructed using the latest official
government data, the report assesses a wide range
of subjects including unemployment, education,
and health.
It found that 2004-05 marked a key turning point,
with poverty, unemployment and repossessions all
starting to rise:
 poverty is now back at the same level as 2000;
having risen every year since 2004-05;
 two million children are in low-income, work-
ing households — the highest figure since records
began;
 unemployment bottomed in 2005 and now nearly
one in eight people of working age want but lack
a job; the highest level since 1997;
195
 repossessions are six times the level of 2004 and
are now back to the level they were in 1994.
There are positives to take over the last decade
as progress has been made on a number of social
problems. For example, the minimum levels of
educational attainment have risen for 11- and 16-
year-olds; and school exclusions have fallen, the
report found.
The rate of premature deaths is falling and infant
mortality has fallen across all social groups — an-
other plus.
Dr. Peter Kenway, co-author of the report, said:
“Looking across the whole range of subjects cov-
ered in this report, there is much in the govern-
ment’s record that is positive.
“But on the core subjects of low income and em-
ployment, the picture is bleak. In particular, it is not
just a question of ‘recovering from the recession’
since things started going seriously wrong as long
ago as 2004.”
www.jrf.org.uk/publications/monitoring-poverty-2009
Guide shows benefits of
being in a union
With the recession putting pressure on Britain’s
workers, the TUC has published new materials to
help unions attract new recruits and also to dem-
onstrate the value of unions to employers.
Alongside a new leaflet aimed at encouraging
workers who have never thought about joining a
union to do so, and a guide to show union reps how
to research the employers they deal with, the TUC
has also released a new report looking at the posi-
tive advantages unions bring to the UK economy.
The Union Advantage says that union members
get higher wages, better sickness and pension
benefits, are much more likely to be able to take
advantage of flexible working and are able to take
more annual leave.
The report cites official statistics showing that
workers in a union earn 12.5% more an hour than
employees in a non-unionised workplace, with aver-
age hourly earnings of £13.07 compared to £11.62.
The presence of a union is likely to push training
up the workplace agenda, encouraging members
196
to take up courses to improve their skills which
their company can then benefit from in the form
of improved productivity. Over 230,000 workers
were helped into taking up some form of learning
by their union last year, says the report.
www.tuc.org.uk/organisation/tuc-17317-f0.cfm
www.tuc.org.uk/extras/unionadvantage.pdf
Will pay lag behind
inflation next year?
Employers predict pay rises for UK workers will
average 1.6% next year — 2% in the private sector
and only 1% in the public sector.
And, according to the Hay Group, which carried
out the research, “moderate” pay rises will leave
workers worse off in 2010, as inflationary pressures
boost the cost of living.
The research reveals two-thirds (64%) of employ-
ees are working over and above contracted hours,
while more than a third (36%) have put in increased
overtime over the past 12 months.
Pay rises in the private sector will be driven by
improving company performance as the economy
begins to pick up, Hay predicts. Corporate per-
formance in many sectors is beginning to improve,
although there may be significant differentials
between industries.
As a result, freezing pay for a second year running
will be a “very hard sell”. As such, pay increases
in the private sector may stretch to more like 3%
— but will still lag behind inflation.
But the pressure to keep a lid on pay increases in
2010 will be stronger in the public than private sec-
tor — a reversal of fortunes compared with 2009.
www.hrmagazine.co.uk/news/971497/year-ahead-Moderate-pay-rises-predicted-2010-
workers-will-worse-off/
Blacklisting is to be
outlawed by early 2010
It will be unlawful for union members to be denied
employment through blacklists under plans outlined
by employment relations minister Lord Young.
To prevent employers from blacklisting workers
for their trade union membership or activities the
Fact Service Volume 71 Issue 49
government will introduce new regulations ban-
ning the practice.
Lord Young for the government said: “Blacklisting
someone because they are a member of a trade
union is totally unacceptable.
“There is already legal protection against the
misuse of people’s personal details. We will now
strengthen the law by introducing new regulations
to outlaw the compilation, dissemination and use
of blacklists.
“The government is determined to stamp out this
despicable practice and our legislative proposals
are a proportionate and robust response”.
The regulations will:
 make it unlawful for organisations to refuse
employment or sack individuals as a result of ap-
pearing on a blacklist;
 make it unlawful for employment agencies to
refuse to provide a service on the basis of appear-
ing on a blacklist; and
 enable individuals or unions to pursue compen-
sation or solicit action against those who compile,
distribute or use blacklists.
The government plans to table the regulations for
Parliament to consider as soon as possible. They
will need to be debated and approved by each
House before they can be implemented, but pro-
vided they get approval, the regulations could be
brought into effect early next year.
Unions have welcomed the regulations. Alan
Ritchie, general secretary of the construction union
UCATT, said: “Blacklisting is a disgraceful, under-
hand practice. The introductions of laws, which
are designed to prevent blacklisting, are welcome
and long overdue. Never again must the lives of
workers and their families be ruined because of
blacklisting.”
Les Bayliss, assistant general secretary of general
union Unite, said: “Too many construction workers
have suffered victimisation at the hands of unscru-
pulous employers and it is right to stamp out this
practice for good.”
www.berr.gov.uk/files/file53734.pdf
http://nds.coi.gov.uk/clientmicrosite/content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=409194&NewsA
reaID=2&ClientID=431
www.ucatt.info/content/view/795/30/
www.unitetheunion.com/news__events/latest_news/unite_welcomes_govern-
ments_an.aspx
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