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Manchester Withington Selection: How To Win Friends and Influence People
Oh dear. One of the candidates for Manchester Withington has sent out hundreds of letters to the selectorate with the wrong postage on. £1.05 fine per member. Ouch! It is a great shame at this is among the better pieces of print distributed during this selection contest. Far too many words on it. But mostly good words.
QUESTIONS: Does Usdaw really have five branches affiliated? And are candidates asked to provide the printed CVs for distribution to members? One of the five is colour printed.
UPDATE: According to papers received today Lucy Powell received nominations from FIVE Usdaw branches, and all three Amicus branches, including my own (in which the three members I know certainly would NOT have backed her). Extraordinary!
12 comments:
Thankfully it's One Member One Vote for the big decision. Though I suspect many hanker for the old corruption of delegates with slates (neo-Tankies v. neo-Trots) in smoke free rooms.
What is interesting is the working with dinosaurs campaign methods. Tried and trusted, using wood-pulp and a mailing list.
I was hoping to see flurries of emails, blogs, podcasts. But then I live in 2007 on broadband.
Chris, why are you so against saying *who* has done anything. Why speak in such clouded terms. Which candidate has sent out a leaflet with the wrong postage on?
apart from nargis who has used youtube of course. search for nargis khan to see video message
Yes apart from Nargis, and Yogesh who both have web sites. Hats off there.
Does anyone know who sent the leaflet?
Naming names:
Lucy Powell is the only candidate whose CV is colour printed. And Lucy has five Usdaw (not USDAW) branches listed as backing her. Are there even five Usdaw members in the constituency? Talk about OMOV here we have OMON or ON-M5N as it goes ... I think to be honest and without wanting to disturb any brothers and sisters out there that in this instance at least the TU nominations are not very significant at all.
Naheed didn't factor in the size charge and was 5p underposted. There is a supposed £1 fine. The postie didn't charge us £2.10 to receive ours.
Use smaller envelopes people!!
Amicus branches aren't allowed to make nominations themselves - head office make the nominations in the name of the local branch. That's how Amicus works!
Thanks anonymous. As I said:
I think to be honest and without wanting to disturb any brothers and sisters out there that in this instance at least the TU nominations are not very significant at all.
Whether nominations are made by head office (as also in the case of Usdaw I'm told) or not (as in the case of CWU it seems) it seems reasonable to expect some consultation and consideration of members POVs. Don't you think?
Here we have eight (or potentially 16) nominations - the same as the seven branches and substantial co-op party branch combined - in the hands of two people who are distant bureacrats!
Nargis has secured SUPPORT (not nominations as they failed to affiliate) from both UNISON and from the Transport and General Workers Union.
"Are there even five Usdaw members in the constituency?"
Answer: Very, very likely. There are, if I remember correctly, two Tesco superstores and at least one Tesco metro either in or very close to this constituency. Since they employ large numbers of people (I'd guess between the three at least 1,000) and Tesco encourages it's staff to join USDAW, I'd guess that there are probably around 250 members (though that is finger in the air).
Er, thanks Anonymous 14:35. 250 members overall. Let's accept that for argument's sake. And let's say 1 in 100 workers in the area are Labour members would give 2.5 LP members.
That is what I meant. So we may have five branch nominations but at the end of the day there may be less people who have votes than nominating branches. Do you see?
I think selection contests often reveal a surprising number of union branches that are affiliated to CLPs. Are affiliations public knowledge (i.e. through Electoral Commission) or do you have to go through the CLP secretary to find out who is affiliated?
I don't think the Electoral Commission hold registers of affiliates. Just moderate donations by amount and substantial donations by name. They get CLP and other accounting units accounts for all parties and depending how these are presented they might perhaps include the names of affiliates. However the cost is trivial and they might be aggregated as "Affiliation Fees £108" etc.
The candidates get a full list of affiliates I think. The advice posted in the comments on this blog did not show that there were 5 Usdaw branches though it was correct about 2 CWU and 3 Amicus.
Bit of a surprise to see five Usdaw nominations on the list and they took up loads of room as they seem to have long names. And come to think of it the Co-op Party that backed Naheed had a different longer name than the one that backed Nargis. Same one actually. Lots of oddness.
I have been told that both UNISON and T&G believed they were affiliated. SERA and SHA could also have affiliated and probably have members in the area, not sure about other societies like Fabians, LGB etc etc Only SEA were affiliated in the right way.
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