Equity Council looks at democratic overhaul
7 February 2012
At its January meeting the Council started consulting on a major overhaul and modernisation of Equity’s democratic structures. A discussion document produced by Equity’s Financial Stability Working Party proposed a streamlining of Equity’s elected committees combined with an expansion of the role of branches and an increase in informal on-line networks. The review of committees and the Council was set up after the Council expressed a fear that costs of meetings were spiralling out of control.
The controversial proposals are now being discussed by Equity’s committees and branches before the Council looks at them again at its March meeting.
In her introduction to the discussion document General Secretary Christine Payne wrote: “The primary purpose of the committees and Council is to bring the democratic authority of the members to the actions of the union. They also provide an opportunity for members to participate in, and influence, their union on matters which are of concern and relevant to their working lives. The working lives of members have changed very significantly over the past 20 years and indeed continue to change.”
During its nine-month review the FSWP asked itself some key questions: are the union’s limited financial and staffing resources being used in the best way to meet the needs of members? Does the union’s democracy reflect the needs and working lives of members? Does the current committee and Council structure help towards organising members to campaign? Does the low participation of members in elections reveal a growing democratic deficit?
The cost of electing and running the union’s committees and Council over their two-year life is very significant, yet member engagement with them is very low. In the 2011 Equity elections only half the committees had sufficient members standing to trigger an election and just 7 per cent of members decided to vote. In 2010, turn out in one election dropped to an appalling 4 per cent. The FSWP asked how far this could really be called democracy.
The key changes to Council and committees up for discussion are:
• two, three or four key industrial committees to cover the major areas of employment;
• overall reduction in number of committees from 27 to a maximum of 15;
• increase in informal networks of members to feed into the elected committees;
• exploration of establishing work-place or skill-based branches;
• simplified Council structure with places reduced from 46 to 26.
Committee changes can be made by the Council, but changes to the Council require a referendum of the members.
Members can download the discussion document from: www.equity.org.uk/documents/fswp-report and can e-mail their views on the proposals to fswpconsultation@equity.org.uk.
Click here to see how The Stage has reported these proposals.