Union voting discrepancy explained as Gething thought to be heading for victory

Wales’ biggest trade union has explained why most of its members in the country haven’t received a vote in the Welsh Labour leadership election.

The explanation came as Vaughan Gething appeared to be heading for victory, with the result due to be announced on the morning of March 16.

Nation.Cymru has been contacted by a number of members of Unison expressing concern that they didn’t receive an email providing them with the link they needed to cast an online vote for Vaughan Gething or Jeremy Miles.

The votes of union affiliates are likely to be crucial in determining who wins the contest. Members of the Labour Party and those who belong to organisations – mainly trade unions – that are affiliated to the party vote on an equal basis. In fact, affiliated voters greatly outnumber ordinary party members. While Welsh Labour is thought to have around 16,000 members, more than 100,000 members of affiliated organisations – mainly unions – can also vote.

Distorted

At the last Welsh Labour leadership election in 2018, when Mark Drakeford defeated Vaughan Gething and Eluned Morgan, the turnout was 53.1% among party members (13,275 votes cast) and just 5.6% among affiliated members (8,400 votes cast). The figures are distorted somewhat, because many Labour Party members are also members of affiliated unions, and are not supposed to vote more than once.

In the current contest, one Unison member, Robin Campbell, posted a comment beneath a story on Nation.Cymru’s website that said: “The article says that 100,000 can participate in this vote. I am a lifelong member of Unison and have had nothing telling me I can vote.

“I phoned Unison and spoke to the receptionist, but no one got back to me. I’m not sure but I think that the union is voting in ‘block’ on behalf of its members. Perhaps someone who is a member, or a member of another union, can enlighten me.”

Eligible

Steve Belcher, Unison’s Labour Link officer for Wales, said: “The explanation is quite simple. Although Unison has around 140,000 members in Wales, only about 55,000 are eligible to vote. That’s because we have two political funds – one where members pay a portion of their membership fee to the Labour Party, and one which is for general campaigns in which we sometimes work with other parties. Only those who pay part of their fee to Labour have been eligible to vote in the leadership election.”

At the start of the leadership contest, Mr Gething succeeded in getting nominations from all of the so-called Big Six unions – Unison, Unite, GMB, Community, CWU and USDAW. None of these unions consulted their full membership in Wales before deciding which of the two candidates to nominate. The decision of Unite to nominate Mr Gething was particularly controversial.

When it appeared that Unite’s Welsh political committee was about to support Mr Miles, the union’s “regional secretary” for Wales, Peter Hughes, intervened and said Mr Miles was ineligible for the nomination because he had not been a union shop steward, representing workers in a workplace. The nomination was therefore given to Mr Gething. Mr Miles argued that a recently introduced rule did not apply to him, but Unite’s general secretary Sharon Graham did not respond and the decision to back Mr Gething was allowed to stand.

Having the big unions’ nominations was a big fillip to Mr Gething’s campaign, because they promoted his candidacy to their members while Mr Miles was unable to reach them.

He was also helped by the fact that damaging revelations that he accepted donations totalling £200k from a convicted criminal did not emerge until days after voting opened.

Experience shows that most people who participate in a postal or online ballot do so very quickly after receiving their voting paper or web link.

Multiple sources have told us that these advantages are expected to secure Mr Gething’s victory.