PAYMENTS IN RESPECT OF SECRET BALLOTS (Hansard, 22 April 1980)

§ Mr. Mayhew
I beg to move amendment No. 3, in page 2, leave out lines 5 to 10 and insert— '(b) carrying out an election provided for by the rules of a trade union; (c) electing a worker who is a member of a trade union to be a representative of other members also employed by his employer; '.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to take Government amendment No. 21.

§ Mr. Mayhew
The effect of these amendments is to enable elections to any position within a union, whether to a post such as shop steward or full-time officer, or to membership of any committee of a union—including the annual conference—to qualify for inclusion in the scheme to which clause I relates, by negative rather than affirmative resolution.
The purpose of amendment No. 21 is to define the words "worker" and "employer", which are not defined in clause 1, in terms of the 1974 Act. When clause 1 was debated in Committee on 29 January, there was a good deal of discussion about elections to the committee of management of a trade union, and to posts held by individuals as employees of trade unions. It was said that the expression "committee of management" would give rise to difficulties, that not a single trade union uses that phrase in its rules, and that those who value the policy of a trade union should be treated as generously as its management.
394 Members of the Committee also said that the holders of some important union posts, such as that of president of the Transport and General Workers' Union, were not employees of a trade union and that elections to these posts would not qualify under the scheme. It was said that the ballot for shop stewards and conveners—arguably the most important ballot—would not be covered.
I told the Committee that this was a brand new exercise, under the provisions of clause 1. It was an untried exercise, and we thought it best to start in a modest and limited way. However, we accept, as I told the Committee, that the scheme should be enlarged to take account of union officials, union office holders and members of a union policymaking committee. I said that we wished to consider how that could best be expressed.
The purpose of the amendments is to give effect to that. I said that we could not give an assurance that the scheme would cover all the contents of these clauses in the first instance. Members of the Committee have already seen our first proposals for the ballot scheme, which we have sent also for comment to the TUC, the CBI, the certification officer and others with relevant knowledge and expertise.
I have already said that we intend to make a relatively cautious start. We do not think it right to include from the outset elections to a union policy-making body, which usually meets once a year. We propose to confine the scheme to elections to the body that has the permanent executive responsibility of managing the affairs of a trade union, by whatever name it may be known. In the elections to union office we felt able to 395 go further than we had originally intended. We propose to cover from the outset elections to the positions of president, chairman, secretary and treasurer of a trade union, reardless of whether the officers are its employees.
Although we have not felt able to go initially as far as the Opposition pressed us to do, the amendments will enable us to cover types of elections in the scheme, for example, shop stewards' elections and those to the policy-making committee of a trade union by order, subject to the negative resolution, of this House. My right hon. Friend earlier said that the Government attach great importance to the provisions of Clause 1, which provide for the reimbursement to a trade union of the cost of secret ballots held for the purposes set out in subsection (3). These amendments follow upon the undertakings and indications that I gave in Committee, and will make valuable additions to the ambit of the clause. I commend the amendments to the House.