Unite ‘loses’ 310,000 members

Unite, Britain’s biggest union, has over 300,000 fewer members than it previously believed, it emerged last week.

by Tribune Web Editor
Friday, July 17th, 2009

by René Lavanchy

Unite, Britain’s biggest union, has over 300,000 fewer members than it previously believed, it emerged last week.

The union’s annual return to the Government’s certification officer says that it had 1.64 million members at the end of last year, compared to 1.95 million in 2007.

Unite declined to comment, but the Financial Times quoted a source describing it as “tidying up” of former and dead members.

The loss has affected the union’s donations to the Labour Party. Unite gave £2.76 million in affiliation fees to Labour in 2008, about £420,000 less than it and its component unions, Amicus and the T&G, the previous year.

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  • Steph

    ah
    my heart bleeds
    not

  • Steph

    ah
    my heart bleeds
    not

  • Rotait

    Perhaps they’ve seen sense and joined Solidarity ?
    After all – if you were a worker oppressed by capitalist management -you would prefer to call on a union that cared about your rights and not the penthouse luxury of its top brass and the rights of foreign workers .
    You would wouldn’t you ?
    Talking of capitalist management how is the Tribune’s new multi millionaire owner – King Kev – keeping these days ? Has the property crash adversely affected his large portfolio ( as the actress might have said to the Bishop )
    I hope he doesn’t have to a Gordon ( Ramsey not Brown ) and sell up. I’d hate to lose the Tribune – its such good fun.

  • Rotait

    Perhaps they’ve seen sense and joined Solidarity ?
    After all – if you were a worker oppressed by capitalist management -you would prefer to call on a union that cared about your rights and not the penthouse luxury of its top brass and the rights of foreign workers .
    You would wouldn’t you ?
    Talking of capitalist management how is the Tribune’s new multi millionaire owner – King Kev – keeping these days ? Has the property crash adversely affected his large portfolio ( as the actress might have said to the Bishop )
    I hope he doesn’t have to a Gordon ( Ramsey not Brown ) and sell up. I’d hate to lose the Tribune – its such good fun.