Political Fund Vs Legal Fund

[Glenno]

I have no problems with calling for a legal fund. There are two attacks one on tribunals which thankfully a very minority of members experience and the other on personal injury claims which more members experience.

am I not right in thinking that PI cases have to go thru the same rigorous checks (50% chance of success) as those who attempt to go down the ET route, All of which have to go thru the Legal team??

[Lincox]

My opinion is that first and foremost the members of this union deserve and should demand that they are fully protected under the umbrella of pooled contributions which pay for the costs of fighting the employer at an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal, discrimination, bullying and harassment, and personal injury claims. I therefore entirely agree with Fish that a levy to ensure that funds are readily available to cover the hike in costs by the Con/Dem Coalition should be immediately debated and members balloted to put this in place.

[Martin Walsh]

Fish proposal is just to this site it is not a motion to conference and it will change nothing unless a branch was to submit an emergency motion.

[monkeymutha]

Refuse to pay any political fund but would pay into a legal one to protect my employment from these dodgy c***s.

[UnhappyGremlin]

Sounds like a very good plan. Which means it would be unlikely to be adopted if it were proposed through the appropriate channel.

[LinChong]

A lot of people opt out of the political levy because they believe all the money goes to the Labour Party. This is a wrong but members still believe it.

Maybe if we offered work related legal cost insurance more members might sign up to 10p a week. Most cases are lost at the fact finding stage where members provide evidence against themselves. At the very least, local reps need access to employment law experts via an emergency help line so that members can be properly briefed before fact finding interviews.

We have allowed the employer to take their notes away from meetings and write them up before they show them to us. This is not in our favour because during meetings managers make mistakes. When we allow them to take their raw notes away without giving us a copy, we allow them to get an expert to go over these notes and rewrite them to remove their mistakes and provide the evidence they need. We should always ask for a copy of the raw notes at the end of meetings. Tribunals would expect such requests to be agreed to.