By Becky Wright, Executive Director, Unions 21 | 2 min
It will come as no surprise that finances have an incredibly important role in the running of a union.
While the UK movement’s overall financial health cannot be accurately calculated due to missing data from some unions, the movement holds well over £1.2 billion in assets. This wealth is largely tied up in investments or property.
However, for the vast majority of the day to day running in the UK, we rely on our membership as the primary engine of our movement and the bedrock of our financial resilience. It keeps us independent from governments and employers. This means that if our wider environment turns more hostile, we have the internal capacity to protect and extend members’ interests.
This is why a decline in income through membership immediately hits budgets and our capacity to represent members. A bad pension return can devastate a union and result in a merger.
To a lesser extent, we can avoid large impacts to our unions through planning and horizon scanning but in reality, how much do we really think about the financial modelling of a union beside income and expenditure?
This is a core challenge for all of us. To move past income and expenditure to broader discussions to consider our membership models and income generation, while ensuring we can balance the financial health of the union with activism and vibrant membership.
We must think of the potential for adaption of our membership models as much as we think about our governance frameworks.
What do we financially need as unions to operate effectively?
