Draft by Stan Crooke, old AWL text from 1980, and comments by Mick Duncan, Mark Neville, Peter Allen, and Martin Thomas.

1. DRAFT BY STAN CROOKE

From Stan:

I have been asked to do the initial draft of a programme for union democracy. The last such programme, which has already been circulated, dates from 1980. That programme is out-of-date in the sense that:

- Obviously no mention of e.g. the anti-union legislation of the past 25 years, or changes in the Labour Party structures over the same period.

- Focus on issues that were topical then, but are less so, if at all, now.

- Was drawn up at a time when there was a higher level of union membership, militancy, etc.

Apart from being out-of-date, the 1980 programme also, I think, mixed up a number of different things:

- How we think unions should be structured (e.g. election of all officials, policy-making bodies to be made up of elected lay members only).

- What we think the relationship of unions should be to the state (i.e. one of full independence). But a demand such as “no interference by the bosses’ courts in the internal affairs of the labour movement” is not something which can be achieved simply by an amendment to a union rule book.

- Aspirations for increased membership involvement, such as the call for “shop stewards to be elected at mass meetings.” Although changing a union’s structures might make it easier to achieve mass meetings, mass meetings cannot be decreed into existence simply by amending a union’s structure and rulebook.

The 1980 programme, although only a couple of sides of A4, was also, I think, quite uneven, in that it jumped back and forth between basic statements of principle and some fairly detailed and specific demands.

The following draft tries to separate out more clearly how greater union membership involvement can be achieved, how unions should be structured, and what they should campaign for in order be able to operate independently of state interference.

And, in the current context, I think that a greater emphasis should be attached to re-asserting basic principles, as opposed to a focus on points of detail.

The following is only a first draft. I assume some kind of mechanism will be set up to enable it to be amended and improved (possibly radically so).

The draft attempts to assert some basic principles, and then to flesh out those principles to a degree, without getting bogged down in fine detail.

To avoid the danger of this draft ending up as a shopping list of demands, perhaps amendments could be made on the basis of the same approach?

RECLAIM OUR UNIONS!

Over the last two and a half decades trade unions in the UK have lost around a third of their membership. The number of strike-days per year has plummeted over the same period to historically low levels.

Successive tranches of anti-union legislation, passed by the Tories and maintained by Labour, have placed legal fetters on the freedom of unions to act in defence of their members.

A philosophy of ‘partnership’ between unions and employers has eroded the ethos of real trade unionism.

The ‘modernisation’ of the Labour Party has increasingly transformed the union-Labour link into a financial lifeline for ‘New Labour’, with unions receiving little or nothing in return.

Union officials are unaccountable to their membership. Poor, or non-existent, channels of communication disenfranchise union members and lead to low levels of membership participation in the internal affairs of unions.

We need to reclaim our unions – from the state, from the employers, and from the unaccountable full-timers and their spirit of bureaucratic routinism and sloth.

The working class needs trade unions which, in alliance with one another, organise and fight to defend and advance the interests of their members.

Trade unions can function effectively only if they:

- encourage active membership participation;

- effectively represent the interests of their members in the workplace independently of, and in opposition to, the interests of the employer;

- build democracy and accountability into their structures;

- promote political representation which champions the rights of labour;

- secure an end to state intervention in their internal affairs, and win legislation which guarantees workers’ rights.

PROMOTING MEMBERSHIP INVOLVEMENT:

Wherever possible, branches should be based in the workplace. Otherwise, geographical branches should cover an area small enough to facilitate attendance at meetings.

Branches should meet at least monthly. They should have the right to communicate directly with other branches, and the right to submit motions direct to the union’s national executive.

Servicing local branches should be a priority for full-time officials. Branch meetings should receive written reports from full-time officials in the event of the official being unable to attend in person.

Voting in union elections should take place at branch meetings. The right of candidates standing for election to circulate campaign material should be unrestricted (in terms of content) but equal (in terms of the allocation of union resources).

Union publications should be opened up to genuine debate and argument. Loyalty to the union includes the right to criticise union policy and argue for it to be changed.

Members should have the right to meet, organise, circulate their own publications and campaign collectively within the union in order to promote policy changes.

Unions should not just concern themselves not just with the ‘bread-and-butter’ interests of members. They should also support their members in combating all forms of discrimination. And they should reach out to recruit and organise the traditionally unorganised, such as migrant workers and home workers.

WORKPLACE REPRESENTATION AND ORGANISATION:

Workplace representatives should be elected at members’ meetings held in the workplace during paid working-time.

Regular workplace members’ meetings should be held during paid working-time. The role of such meetings will include mandating elected representatives prior to meetings with management, and hearing report-backs from the representatives after meetings with management.

Decisions on strike action, and any other form of industrial action, should be taken at workplace meetings, with no need for approval by any higher level of the union.

Strikes committees, accountable and recallable, should be elected in the event of strike action being taken.

No agreement with the employer, whether it be in the course of ‘normal’ negotiations or in the event of industrial action, will be reached without it first having been approved at a workplace members’ meeting.

There should be no more ‘partnership’ agreements with employers. Unions should withdraw from any ‘partnership agreements currently in force.

Unions should campaign for 100% trade unionism in the workplace and the restoration of the closed shop.

DEMOCRACY AND ACCOUNTABILITY:

All officials should be elected for a maximum two-year term of office and be subject to recall at any time. Full-time officials should be paid the average wage in their industry.

All policy-making bodies, statutory bodies, and conference delegations should be made up of elected lay members only.

Minutes and delegates’ voting records of policy-making bodies should be posted up on the union’s website.

Delegate conferences should be held annually, vested with the supreme power to determine union policy and amend the union rulebook.

POLITICAL REPRESENTATION:

As long as legislation exists which distinguishes between general expenditure and political expenditure by a union, all unions should have a political fund.

Union political funds should be subject to democratic control by the membership. Trade unions, including those affiliated to the Labour Party, should finance and support in elections only those candidates who base themselves on the principles of collective working-class political representation.

Trade unions affiliated to the Labour Party should campaign to win support for their policies in the structures of the Labour Party (e.g. CLPs, policy forums, NEC, and national conferences), while reducing their affiliation fees to the constitutionally required minimum.

Trade union delegates to Labour Party bodies who fail to argue and vote for their union’s policies should be replaced by delegates who will do so.

Trade unions should withdraw support from the ‘Warwick Agreement’, which does not constitute a trade union political agenda, and oppose proposals for a ‘Warwick Agreement II’.

All trade unions, irrespective of whether or not they are currently affiliated to the Labour Party, should affiliate to the Labour Representation Committee, as part of the campaign for the recreation of a union-based workers’ party.

Campaigning through political and parliamentary channels is not a substitute for, or alternative to, campaigning through industrial action on the basis of effective trade union organisation in the workplace.

TRADE UNION INDEPENDENCE:

Unions should have the right to determine their own rulebook. This includes the right of unions to discipline members who take action (e.g. scabbing) contrary to the interests of their fellow members.

Unions should be financially self-reliant. They should no longer accept government funding, and should no longer rely on employers to collect union dues.

Union members should have the right to take strike action and any other form of industrial action without first having meet any legal requirements set by the state.

Unions should have the right to spend their income as they see fit, without the need to maintain a separate political fund.

Unions should campaign for the scrapping of all anti-union legislation, including through organising mass defiance of that legislation to make it inoperable.

Unions should campaign for a Charter of Workers Rights – enshrined in legislation to guarantee trade union rights and basic rights at work, including the right to union autonomy, the right to automatic union recognition, and the right to strike.

The final arbiter of union rules, union policies, and union campaigning can only be the union membership itself.

2. OUR 1980 TEXT

This is the last comprehensive programme for union democracy which we published. It is from 1980, so shaped by the epoch before Thatcher and before the anti-union laws. It needs reworking for today. Re-sent for our current discussions on the "super-union".

UNION OFFICIALS AND COMMITTEES

All officials should be elected for definite terms (no more than two years} and subject to recall at any time. Full-time officials should be paid the average wage in their industry.

Union policy-making bodies and delegations to the TUC and Labour Party should be made up of elected lay members only. The same should go for Standing Orders Committees and Appeals Committees.

Full minutes and voting records of policy-making bodies should be circuIated .

National delegate conferences should be held every year and should have supreme policy-making power.

ELECTIONS

Voting should be at workplace meetings and not by postal ballot. We want informed, collective, working class decision-making, not ballots manipulated by Fleet Street lie-machines. Election addresses must be circulated unaltered, and candidates and their supporters must have unrestricted rights to circulate literature.

STRIKES

Ali strikes for trade union principle, work conditions or wages should be made official. Strike committees must be elected from land subject to recall by mass meetings. Through mass meetings and strike bulletins they must keep the membership fully informed throughout the strike.

There should be no secret negotiations. Every stage of negotiation should be subject to rank and file ratification at mass meetings. Mass meetings should never be presented with package deals unless each part of the deal has been voted on separately by the meeting beforehand.

WORKPLACE ORGANISATION

Shop stewards must be elected at mass meetings held in the workplace in company time. They should hold regular report-back meetings and insist on company time for those too. Joint Shop Stewards' Committees should be set up on a plant, combine and international basis. White-collar workers should also be represented on these committees.

Despite the general need for unity, there will be cases where shop stewards disagree strongly with the majority of the stewards' committee and want to put their minority views to the membership. They should have the right to do so, after notifying the committee of their intention, so long as they also make clear to the membership what the stewards' majority view is.

Union branch meetings should be at the workplace and in work time if possible. If not, creche facilities must be provided to ensure women workers can attend. Labour Party workplace branches should be set up with all the rights of ordinary ward branches.

CLOSED SHOP

We must campaign: for 100% trade unionism; for the right of trade unionists to enforced closed shops; for the right of trade unionists to discipline fellow workers who scab or flout democratic decisions; against the check-off system, and against employer-policed 'agency shops'.

WOMEN'S RIGHTS

Full equality for women, in the trade unions. Equal contributions and equal rights. Positive discrimination to ensure real equality. Support for the right to form women's caucuses.

BLACK AND IMMIGRANT WORKERS

No discrimination against black or immigrant workers in the union (including in social clubs). Positive discrimination to ensure real equality. Support for the right to form black caucuses.

Campaigns to recruit immigrant workers to trade union (using leaflets in the immigrants' own languages). Automatic endorsement of industrial action by black and immigrant workers whether they are in the majority or not.

A purge of open racists from all positions in the labour movement. Expulsion of fascist activists from the unions.

YOUTH

Full trade union rights for young workers, including the right to strike. Formation of youth committees.

THE UNEMPLOYED

Unionisation of the unemployed, with full rights within the unions.

INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS

Right of members to criticise union policy; to meet unofficially and visit other branches; to communicate with the press, to write, circulate, and/or sell political literature. Right of appeal direct to union Appeals Court.

All educational or other special qualifications for union office to be abolished. No member to be disqualified from holding union office on political grounds, other than fascist or racist activity.

DEVELOPI NG SOLIDARITY

Develop links between unions. Expand trades councils to include representation from the unemployed, tenants and students, and most important, direct representation from factory committees and other shop floor organisations. Affiliate trade unions to the Labour Party and trade union branches to the local CLPs. TUC and Labour Party conference delegations should be bound to follow union policy where it exists.

Trade union branch delegates to Trades Councils and Labour Parties must report back regularly.

BREAKING COLLABORATION

Trade unions should fight for full independence from the state. Total non-cooperation with the Employment Act; state money for postal ballots should be rejected.

The National Economic Development Council and all the other governmental and industrial 'participation' bodies should be opposed and boycotted. Trade unionists must be answerable to the membership, not to joint committees with the bosses.

No interference by the bosses' courts in the internal affairs of the labour movement. Even when an appeal to the courts is motivated by a desire to thwart the right-wing bureaucrats, it runs counter to the principles of working class democracy.

3. DISCUSSION

A) From Mick Duncan

There is an issue in some of this that needs addressing - that of involvement and of unorganised workplaces.

Mass meetings, lay committees etc all presuppose a level of lay member involvement that does not exist. We need to rebuild it. There are plenty of areas of the trade union movement that would conform to this prescription but are self-selecting committees of the same old faces, re-elected by the same ten people every year. Meanwhile the branches they "represent" are withering and are unable to deliver industrial action.

There are now legal requirements to hold postal ballots. Immediately we should insist that candidates, factions and supporters are able to campaign (but with restrictions on spending) and that a manifesto etc should be circulated and mass hustings organised by the union across the country to enable lay member questioning and participation in the debate.

In unorganised workplaces, mass meetings and elections at meetings cannot take place in work time. An over-prescriptive structure right at the start could doom a unionisation campaign to failure (I appreciate that this is not the intention of the statement below but I think it needs registering).

A more flexible approach is needed basically, and it starts with a recognition of the appallingly low level of involvement and organisation, resulting from a prolonged decline in militancy. Our priority is to rebuild shop-floor militancy and control of our unions, and vitally, to build up organisation (fighting capacity) and to welcome new layers of migrant, part-time and casualised workers into our ranks.

Just a few though6ts off the top of my head,

Mick

b) From Mark Neville

Further thought on this subject of elections/ballots

Many council workers (and no doubt health and private sector workers) are spread over large geographical areas and often in small number workplaces, whilst it is important for work place meetings to take place and area meetings to prevent isolation etc, in order to get maximum membership involvement, ballots are/can be the best tool to increase participation. Mick is certainly right about the '...........decline in militancy..........' and the implications

The document is old as Martin states and we obviously have to move on and update to today's realities.

C) FROM: Peter Allen

A central part of any campaign must be to fight for the right of union members to be given paid time to attend union meetings and/or to participate in union democracy via email/the internet etc. In my experience many if not most union "officials" regard this as a low priority and are happy to keep this paid time for themselves. Large numbers of workers could be convinced of the "reasonableness" of this demand given the obvious reality of management being given unlimited paid time to meet and organise. Many of the same workers would also recognise this demand as a means of holding their union leaders to account, regarding them at present as largely unaccountable and indeed sometimes appearing to be part of the "problem", indeed part of the management.

d) From Mick Duncan

This is a good point. It makes the work of organising and building branch meetings much more difficult and much more essential. In a large, concentrated workplace, workers meet and talk daily. In smaller units, workers may not discuss work with more than one or two colleagues ever, unless successful branch meetings are built. Let's be honest here too - what is the average attendance at our union branch meetings? How do we build for them and make them open, interesting, hospitable places for lay members? These are important questions.

There is also an obvious point here about density. Unions have declined into being providers of individual services to scattered members. Advertising on the TV and buses to collect new members wherever they may be, has gained unions like UNISON a few (though not many at all) members, but they are scattered. They demand individual servicing but can wield no workplace power. It is not sustainable, political, useful trade unionism - it is an insurance scheme. We need to be fighting for a much more strategic approach in the movement to building strong, dense workplace organisation that can deliver action.

e) From Martin Thomas

A few suggestions about Stan's draft.

1. Recruitment

There should be a bit added on this, including control over recruitment drives by local branches; the right of new recruits to be part of functioning branches; the right of new groups of members to have a say on any deals with the employer made as part of a recruitment operation.

2. "Servicing local branches should be a priority for full-time officials. Branch meetings should receive written reports from full-time officials in the event of the official being unable to attend in person".

Suggest replace by: "The union should campaign to ensure that employers grant every branch's secretary time and facilities in work time to do her or his job, without becoming separated from the conditions of the general branch membership. Where the union cannot win that, it should provide assistance directly (payment to cover unpaid leave from work for union duties, computer and photocopying facilities, etc.) The union should not pay honoraria to branch officers at a level which gives them significant privileges over the membership. Full-time officials should make themselves available to attend branch meetings when requested, or provide written reports when they cannot attend".

Comment: Having a full-time official present at every branch meeting is surely undesirable (as well as impossible, because there are so many more branches than full-time officials). And on the whole we want branches to control their own regular functioning rather than being dependent on servicing by full-time officials. One of the curses of the movement today is large numbers of branches (in the GMB, for example) which have no lay officers and no branch meetings, but are simply statistical collections of members serviced by a full-time official. Obviously branches will want support from full-time officials, but a general statement that "servicing branches should be a priority for full-time officials" lacks bite because in all circumstances the officials will at least say they are doing that.

3. "Voting in union elections should take place at branch meetings..... Workplace representatives should be elected at members' meetings held in the workplace during paid working time".

Suggest replace by: "Where the law allows, voting in union elections should take place by workplace ballot or at branch meetings.... The union should campaign for employers to give facilities for union meetings in the workplace during paid working time. Workplace representatives should be elected at workplace members' meetings or by workplace ballot".

Comment: (a) Even if the law did not oblige unions to hold many elections by postal ballot, I don't think we want all elections to take place in branch meetings. Even back in the 1970s, when union branch life was stronger, we campaigned in the CPSA for union executive elections to be by direct membership ballot rather than by branch block vote (decided in branch meetings). Not only now, but in any near future, branch meetings are a small minority of the membership. (b) Generally - Stan himself makes the point - we need to distinguish between things that the union should campaign for from employers and which will improve union democracy, and democratic measures which the union can implement whatever the employers do. (c) In the RMT on the London Underground, union reps are elected at branch meetings. Although union branch life there is much better than in most other unions and industries, and the branches are based on workplace (i.e. group of stations and depots), this means that reps are generally elected by other reps and with little reference to most of the workers they represent. Election by workplace ballot would be better. Election by workplace meeting would be even better, but is often genuinely difficult to arrange.

Maybe there needs to be some indication as to who would have the responsibility for organising the workplace ballots or members' meetings to elect workplace representatives.

4. "The right of candidates standing for election to circulate campaign material should be unrestricted (in terms of content)..."

Maybe it is too pedantic a point to bother with, but restrictions on content by number of words are reasonable. The restrictions we object to are political ones.

5. "Decisions on strike action... should be taken at workplace meetings, with no need for approval by any higher level of the union".

Suggest replace by: "Automatic union endorsement for all industrial action for wages, conditions, or trade-union principle decided by properly convened workplace or union branch meetings".

Comment: No union, however undemocratic, can stop its members in a workplace deciding to strike. So the positive meaning of saying that the right of decision should belong to workplace meetings must be that the union should endorse all strike (etc.) decisions taken by such meetings. Maybe my suggested replacement text is, however, too maximalist. With the limitation to "action for wages, conditions, or trade-union principle", I intend to avoid saying that the union must be bound to support e.g. racist strikes, or strikes by teachers for exclusion of students, if decided on by even a small and maverick workplace. However, it is a fact, not just a bureaucrat's excuse, that union endorsement for industrial action makes the union liable to drastic legal action. Would even the best, most militant union be well-advised to commit itself to full-scale confrontation with the law every time any workplace group of members, however small or maverick, decides it wants a stoush? Maria says that the CWU has a rule allowing branches to take decisions on industrial action. Presumably that includes the necessary qualifications. Can we take it as a model?

6. "Strike committees, accountable...."

Suggest add: "These strike committees should control all negotiations".

7. "No agreement... will be reached without it first having been approved at a workplace members' meeting".

Suggest add: "or in a members' ballot, if practicable workplace-based".

Comment: Where (commonly enough) negotiations are over conditions covering a large number of workplaces, even a well-organised union may find it difficult or impossible to organise workplace meetings in all those workplaces. It may even be genuinely impracticable to organise workplace-based ballots.

8. "Restoration of the closed shop".

Suggest replace by: "Restoration of the 100% union shop".

Comment: the old closed shop, giving a particular union a monopoly over a workplace, was always double-edged. It could sometimes be defended against employers trying to abolish it for their own reasons, but should we propose it as an ideal now?

9. "All policy-making bodies... should be made up of elected lay members only".

Suggest add: "The national executive, and industrial sector executives, should meet at least monthly, and should be able to meet at short notice to deal with urgent matters or on the demand of a significant minority of their members. The union should campaign for agreements from employers to release executive members from work for such meetings; should offer compensation if members have to take unpaid leave to attend; and should arrange meetings so as to enable maximum attendance by lay members".

Comment: We want executives which operate more like the RMT, the CWU, or even (all qualifications granted) the Unison service group executives - i.e. which could, if they had the political stuffing, control the full-time officials - not ones structured like the TGWU and Amicus (and GMB too, I think), which meet so infrequently (about every three months) that it is very difficult for them to control the full-time officials.

10. "... and amend the union rulebook".

Suggest add: "... at any conference".

Comment: Amicus, for example, allows amendments to its rules only every five years.

11. "Union political funds should be subject to democratic control by the membership".

Suggest replace by: "The conduct of the political fund should be subject to control by the ordinary democratic decision-making structures of the union - union conference, national executive, etc. If the union has any special committees for the political fund, they should be directly elected by ballot of all members paying the political levy to the fund".

Comment: Even Amicus would say that its political fund was democratically controlled. And in a certain sense it is even true, i.e. the people running the political fund did not gain their positions by inheriting them or by staging a military coup. They were elected. The problem is that the structure of election and voting in political fund matters is very indirect - running through a complex structure of scarcely-attended "political conferences" - and anyway restricted to participation only by Amicus delegates to CLPs.

12. "Unions.... should no longer rely on employers to collect union dues".

Comment: Leave this out? Sure, the check-off is double-edged. But in many areas abandoning it would - given the lack of lay activists willing to collect dues, which is not something that can be remedied overnight - collapse union membership.

13. Industrial and regional structure

A bit should be added on autonomy for industrial sectors within unions, especially as what we have in mind, a TGWU-GMB-Amicus, would be a vast sprawling conglomerate. Without such autonomy, almost any group of members in the union could be stomped on by the full-time officials quite easily because its particular grievances would be remote and might even be incomprehensible to the rest of the members, working in very different industries under very different conditions. It may be that the CWU or TGWU structure is adequate (at least as regards formal rulebook provisions) here.

GMB activists are worried about over-mighty regional structures in the GMB being carried over into any merged union, and "regional barons" are a problem in the TGWU too. What are the key positive things to propose here? Branches' rights to submit motions directly to union conference (not only to national executive, as in Stan's draft). Branches' right to send delegates directly to union conference.

(Possible problems here. In a merged TGWU-GMB-Amicus, the number of branches might well be too great for it to be impracticable for every branch to have a delegate to union conference, especially if larger branches had, as they reasonably would have, more than one delegate. If branches are workplace-based, they can differ in size hugely. Even the proposed NATFHE-AUT merger apparently has problems here. It will have big branches in universities, and lots of quite small branches in FE colleges, and apparently the proposal is that the smaller branches be grouped for purposes of electing conference delegates. Some of our NATFHE activists even think that the current NATFHE system - conference delegates elected by regional committees - is better, because so many small branches have little life, and their process of "electing a delegate" will just be a matter of one person or another in that branch or group of branches volunteering and going without even that degree of accountability she or he would have if she or he had to report back to the regional committee. But on balance I think we must be for direct branch delegates to union conferences.)

Beyond that, I don't know what to propose in formal union-rulebook terms. Plainly it is reasonable for a union to have a regional structure; and plainly, also, that regional structure will tend to have more weight in general unions than in industrial unions (because in a general union, some industrial sectors will have relatively small numbers of workers in some regions, and so will have to be serviced either by geographically remote industrial-sector committees and full-time officials or - where something face-to-face is needed - by regionally-based committees and full-time officials who have wider terms of reference). What are the key points to stop that rational regionalism swelling into regional baronies?

F) EXCHANGE BETWEEN STAN CROOKE AND MARTIN THOMAS

At 21:43 24/08/2005, Stan wrote:

1) Would it not be sufficient to say: "Full membership rights for new recruits from day one of joining the union." And why do we need to refer to local branch control over recruitment drives? Is this a problem? Surely the bigger problem is the general lack of any serious recruitment drives, rather then who 'controls them?

The full-time organisers run from RMT head office for recruiting are referred to in the union (jokingly, but...) as the BTP, "Bob's Thought Police". On the other hand, the RMT has a popular and, as I understand it, effective scheme for rank and file activists to have their wages paid by the union and take unpaid leave from work to do recruiting. There are similar tensions in CWU. Also, see the fairly long discussion of this question, based on US experience, by Kim Moody in Ellen Wood (ed), "Rising from the ashes?", p.70ff. Moody's discussion bases itself on a substantial research study by Kate Bronfenbrenner and Tom Juravich. And Britain has seen recruitment drives which consist of the union approaching the employer and "selling" him a sweetheart deal in return for membership; others which consist of full-time officials signing members up and servicing them as individuals without even an attempt to organise them into functioning branches. "Full membership rights from day one" does not really cover that problem, because the new recruits are not being deprived of formal rights - only (unless they have very exceptional drive and energy) of the material means to exercise any of those rights.

2) This is too detailed. Better just to include the first and last sentences of the re-wording. (And should it not be branch officers, rather than just the branch secretary?) (And the relationship between branches and local full-timers is going to be an even bigger problem in the merged union than it is now in the AEEU-MSF merger, as there will be another round of golden handshakes for full-timers.)

The business about branch officer honoraria is a big one, I think. Apparently some branch officer honoraria in the GMB are very large indeed. It was also a big problem in NUPE. Mentioning other branch officers than secretary becomes doubtful if we are speaking of small branches, as many workplace-based branches would be.

4) Replace by: "(in terms of subject-matter)"?

8) Isn't the re-wording just another way of saying "restoration of the closed shop"? (Especially given the use of the word "restoration".) If it isn't, what does it mean?

No. The closed shop is a monopoly for one particular union, and quite distinct from the principle of 100% union membership.

10) That's what the original wording is intended to convey - annual conferences to cover both policy and also rule changes.

Best to be explicit.

12) The wording does not propose overnight abolition of check-off. In any case, I think more and more unions are encouraging payment by direct debit anyway. It is also incongruous to advocate trade union independence, while simultaneously asking the enemy to collect your membership dues for you.

I don't think you can say that the check-off is a loss of independence, any more than (say) getting a union office, or facilities for union meetings, or a union noticeboard, on the employer's premises is. The problem with the check-off is different: (a) it encourages laziness; (b) it creates vulnerability, i.e. the boss can paralyse union income at any time by suspending check-off, and it's harder to fight than e.g. the withdrawal of a union noticeboard. Plainly it is prudent for unions to encourage direct debits. But I don't think the check-off can be condemned as simply a loss of independence.