Ballot Papers

Good to see that Amicus, as well as inserting a call to vote Cruddas with their ballot papers, has put in a party membership form and the nominations booklet with statements from all the 6 candidates, so every one has had some chance to communicate with members of the union. This is a big improvement from my memory of 1994 as a TGWU member when I think we just got a letter of instruction on who to vote for from Bill Morris, and no material about the non-TGWU nominated candidates - maybe this is a false memory but I don't remember getting the nominations booklet with my union ballot that time.

TGWU have done the same as Amicus this time, though their pro-Cruddas leaflet features the same picture of Jon as Amicus', but carefully trimmed down the left hand margin so you can't see that he was actually having his pic taken with Derek Simpson - shades of Soviet era air-brushings out. So the two unions are still behaving in quite a different way when it comes to the Deputy Leadership election. And I expect they are both a bit p****d off that people like me can't wrap our dim heads around the fact that they are no longer two separate unions but part of Unite the Union.

Mind you, they won't be half as p****d off as I am at having only received one ballot paper. I mean to say, they could have sent me a few more in case of errors filling it in. Or perhaps forwarded me some papers issued on behalf of less experienced members of the union, those without English as a first language and those unable to afford postage stamps, so that I could help them out by making sensible marks on the paper for them and sending them off in the post. I mean what's the point of having all the political and administrative expertise that accrues as a result of being a Hackney Labour Councillor and not put it to good use?