PROPOSALS to prevent public sector workers from paying their union membership fees directly from their wages have come under fire.
The Government has announced plans to change the upcoming trade union bill where doctors, teachers and civil servants will be forced to make their own arrangements to pay union subscriptions.
The move is aimed at modernising the payment process, which has been using a ‘check off’ system where subscriptions are taken directly from the salaries of public sector employees.
However the proposed changes have angered trade union leaders, with Ravi Subramanian, regional secretary of UNISON West Midlands, saying attacks on unions are attacks on working people too.
“This latest malicious manoeuvre from ministers shows how far a Conservative government are prepared to go to attack ordinary working people,” he said.
“In simple terms they are planning to go to deny nurses, care workers, teaching assistants, hospital cleaners and town hall staff a voice at work.
“Allowing union subs to be taken directly from peoples’ salaries is convenient for individual employees, their unions and their employers – and it works well in both the public and private sectors of the economy.
“The suggestion that this costs the taxpayer is simply not true, in much of the public sector, unions pay the hospital trust or the local council the cost of taking the subs at source, so there is no cost to the public purse.”
However, Harriett Baldwin, MP for West Worcestershire, said the proposed changes would ‘modernise’ the process of being part of a union and giving individual members ‘greater choice’.
“The relationship between a trade union and its members is an important one but change is long overdue and subscriptions can easily be paid by direct debit,” she added.
