Has Labour got a plan? If it does, the GMB doesn’t like it, announcing this morning that it will cut its affiliation funds from £1.2 million to £150,000, effective from january 2014. The cut is to reflect the number of the union’s members who it estimates would choose to affiliate to the Labour party under the new reforms announced by Ed Miliband.
In a statement this morning, the union said:
‘GMB CEC expressed considerable regret about the apparent lack of understanding the proposal mooted by Ed Miliband will have on the collective nature of trade union engagement with the Labour Party.
‘A further source of considerable regret to the CEC is that the party that had been formed to represent the interest of working people in this country intends to end collective engagement of trade unions in the party they helped to form.’
Rachel Reeves was on the Today programme this morning, and tried to link her latest attack on the cost of living with the GMB’s concerns about the breaking of the link, arguing that her campaign on wages would be just the sort of thing that would attract GMB members.
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