Trade unions have been the main organisations established to represent the rights of workers and to take their part in disputes with their employers. Since 'big business' has funded middle-class parties, it is hardly surprising that unions have long supported working-class parties. However, the nature of the organisational links between unions and social-democratic and Communist parties has varied greatly both between countries and, within countries, over time.
Examples of strong organisational links between unions and Labour parties or Centre-Left parties have been seen in Britain, Scandinavia and (in a more complex fashion) in the United States.
In Britain, the body that was later to emerge as the Labour Party was originally established in 1900 by a combination of small socialist societies and by some trade unions. Since members of Parliament were at the time unpaid, since the costs of running election campaigns for the House of Commons were high, and since the Liberal Party was usually unwilling to select working-class candidates because they could not contribute substantially to these costs, a new method of funding seemed essential. Political levies from members of trade unions were the most efficient way to collect enough money in small amounts to allow candidates drawn from poor backgrounds to compete in parliamentary elections.
From this beginning, special political levies by trade unions were to provide the largest part of Labour's funds during its entire existence. They still do, even though they have become a little less dominant in the last few years.
Justifications For Trade Union Funding
The main justification for trade union funding in the established democracies is that it has been essential in view of the usually much larger funds available from corporations and from rich individual donors to their political adversaries.
In addition, money raised by unions from their members has usually been more closely regulated than parallel contributions by the rich and by companies.
A third justification is that union funding has expressed an organic unity between different organisations within what may broadly be called the 'Labour Movement' in each country. Therefore, it has not been a matter of unions' trying to gain special privileges in return for their payments (often the case with business contributions to politicians and to parties). Political giving has been a fraternal activity by one set of workers' organisations to their natural political allies.
There is a further argument for union involvement in politics in countries where there is no tradition of competitive elections. In some of these countries, trade unions may be one of the only independent or relatively independent set of organisations and the only force capable of organising a challenge to the existing regime. The roles of some African union organisations (for instance in Zambia) and of the Polish Union, Solidarity, in the 1980s are examples.
Criticisms of Political Funding by Unions
A primary source of concern is about the rights of individual union members not all of who are supporters of the party or parties to which the union leaders decide to contribute. Even if regulations (as in Britain) permit individual members of unions to sign a form 'contracting out' of that part of their union affiliation fee which is to be used for political purposes, the system will arguably still be unfair. Inertia means that members will tend to pay the political levy even if they oppose the purposes for which it is used. In some cases, members may fear that 'contracting out' of the political levy will make them targets of local union leaders.
An additional worry is that decisions about the use of political levy funds will be decided by a narrow group of union leaders who are, in practice, insufficiently accountable to the ordinary members. Moreover, the leaders may be given seats on the ruling board of the party to which donations are given (as in the British Labour Party) or for other reasons have excessive influence over party policy.
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