Out of every five RMT members, four did not vote in the recent General Secretary election. Why is this, and what can we do about it?
The problem of low turnout is not confined to RMT. The large public-sector union Unison elected a new General Secretary in January with a turnout of just 9.8%, The civil service union PCS recently held a National President and Executive election in which only 7% of its members voted.
Some factors are linked to the process of the election itself: both the laws which restrict how they run and the union’s own shortcomings in promoting them.
Anti-union laws
Britain’s anti-trade-union laws insist that some union posts (including General Secretaries and National Executives) are elected by postal ballot only, with quite detailed restrictions on how this is done.
Despite the government having a ‘digital by default’ policy for public administration, and the Conservative party using electronic voting in its own internal elections, it insists that trade unions can not use new technology.
With most communication now carried out electronically, a plain ballot envelope amongst a pile of junk mail often goes unnoticed.
No promo
But the anti-union laws do not prevent the union doing more to promote the election than RMT actually did.
It could have sent out regular text and email reminders to members to vote; circulated a workplace poster advertising the election; or included in RMT News coverage of the election and the importance of voting (pages of bland boxes declaring that ‘x branch nominates y candidate’ do not count). But it did not.
It could have produced and circulated a short video message explaining the election, but instead that was left to activists to do themselves. We think it could even have made the envelope more attention-grabbing (we can’t find a law that prevents this).
Why does it matter?
Members vote if they think their vote matters. For this, they need to know what the post is, and be convinced that one candidate deserves their vote above the others.
Members will have a better idea of this if they have encountered any of the candidates. But if they haven’t, there can often be little to choose between the candidates’ election addresses. RMT has a culture of individual candidates declaring themselves; we think it would be better if groups of union activists with different views on the way forward for the union made those views clear and selected their candidate on that basis.
Engaging union members
But most of the problem is not with the technicalities of the election itself, but with the generally low level of engagement of members with their unions. Why is this the case?
One factor is that workers are overburdened with the demands of work and life, perhaps even more than usual during the current pandemic. Even though being actively involved in a union can be a very effective way of tackling these burdens in the long term, in the short term it can feel impossible to fit in alongside everything else.
Unions can not simply expect members to get involved without encouragement. Organising – not just recruiting members but helping them to get actively involved – is crucial.
Activist organisation or service provider?
Another issue is the portrayal of unions (including by unions themselves) not as activist organisations but as service providers and insurance policies.
RMT is perhaps less guilty of this than some other unions, but still, if you sign someone up to a union on the basis that they can call on it if they get into trouble, then they are unlikely to do anything active in the union until they have an individual problem at work. You probably don’t vote in the election of the CEO of your insurance provider, do you? So if you see a union as just an insurance policy, why would you bother to vote?
A union that is actively battling for better pay and conditions at work and mobilising members to defend themselves against the employers’ attacks will see a greater degree of participation. RMT is better than most unions at doing this, and the pandemic has understandably restricted its capacity to do so, but there is nonetheless room for improvement.
Open door?
It is not easy to engage with a union if it does not have a high profile in your workplace, if you rarely see a rep, if your branch meets in an inaccessible venue at a time that you can’t make it, or if it comes across as a small clique that doesn’t welcome new or different people.
If the union identifies barriers to involvement and removes them, it will engage more members, who will respond by taking part in elections and other activities.
Leaving it to the leaders
We can get more members voting in union elections, and more members active in the unions more generally, but we won’t do it by waiting for union leaders to act. Union bureaucracies have a tendency to keep doing things the way that they have always been done, and are unlikely to change unless they come under pressure from rank-and-file members.
Of course, RMT members – quite rightly – want to be loyal to the union, but that does not mean simply being willing foot-soldiers who do not demand change. The union does not currently have an organised rank-and-file body calling for the change it needs. Off The Rails wants to play our part in changing that.