Analysing the Political Fund Ballots: A Remarkable Victory or the Triumph of the Status Quo?

Abstract

Summary As noted above, the most remarkable feature of the results has been their consistency. And, although the more detailed figures show some interesting differences and material for speculation, they should not deflect attention too much from the overall results. Given the 1983 general election results and the MORI poll referred to earlier, it is not surprising that union officials concerned with the campaign are unanimous in seeing the campaign as an overwhelming success. For, to take just one indicator, they could be taken to imply that there is in 1985–6 greater support for unions engaging in political activity than there was when many of the original funds were established under the 1913 Act. For under that Act, of the first 28 ballots held, none was lost, but ‘only’ 63 per cent of votes cast supported the establishment of a fund, and in some unions significant minorities voted against, notably the Carpenters and Joiners (47 per cent against), the Weavers (44 per cent), the Miners (43 per cent) and the Cotton Spinners (41 per cent).31 After six or seven decades which have, it is often alleged, witnessed the increasing ‘depoliticization’ of the British trade union movement, such results came as something of a surprise to union activists, the architects of the 1984 Act and academic commentators alike.

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