EXCLUSIVE

Tom Gordon

Scottish Political Editor

ONE of Scotland’s biggest unions has been accused of a “flagrant breach” of equality law after saying potential employees must campaign for the Labour party.

The GMB, which has 60,000 members north of the border, has now been reported to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in Scotland.

Mark Irvine, an adviser on equal employment rights and former union official, complained after GMB Scotland advertised for two organisers “to develop the membership of the union”.

The main duties for the junior posts were organising, recruiting and motivating union members, and representing them in pay and employments disputes.

The advert boasted “The GMB is an equal opportunities employer”.

However it also said the staff would be expected to “take part in election campaigns in support of Labour candidates” and “increase the membership of the Labour party”.

Irvine, who helps win backpay for female council workers underpaid on gender grounds, said the need to back Labour discriminated against people on the basis of their political beliefs.

Although the trade union movement gave birth to Labour a century ago, many union members support other parties, with around 16,000 union members in the SNP alone.

Irvine raised the job advert in a letter to GMB general secretary Sir Paul Kenny last month.

“In my view the requirement that GMB job applicants must be willing to work in the interests of the Labour party must be discriminatory because it must exclude people who actively support other political parties, eg SNP or Greens” he wrote.

After Kenny failed to reply, Irvine lodged a formal complaint on Friday with the EHRC, which enforces equality legislation to ensure employers do not discriminate on “religion or belief”.

In his complaint, Irvine said: “As a former trade union official myself, latterly as Unison's Head of Local Government in Scotland, I fail to see how the GMB can legitimately insist that potential candidates for a non-specialist job such as Union Organiser must be willing to work in the interests of the Labour Party.

“To my mind this job criterion specified by the GMB is a flagrant breach of UK equality legislation which makes it unlawful to deny a potential employee a job because they do not share their prospective employer's political beliefs.”

Irvine told the Sunday Herald: “While the GMB could legitimately argue that its political officer in Scotland is exempt from the rules because he has to be a Labour party member to carry out a significant part of his job, the same cannot be said for GMB organisers.”

A GMB organiser in London recently won an employment tribunal against the union on the basis that he was wrongly dismissed for being “too left wing”.

The GMB successfully appealed, however the appeal judge agreed that a person’s political beliefs were protected just as much as their religious beliefs under employment law.

Harry Donaldson, the general secretary of GMB Scotland, said: “We’re well aware of this individual’s continual push for coverage in the media. Our position is clear: if and when we receive a complaint it will be dealt with, but as yet we have not.”

Glasgow South West MP Chris Stephen, chair of the SNP’s trade union group, said: “The Trade Union movement in Scotland is strengthened by its political diversity, and advertising a job explicitly based on party membership, whether illegal or not, certainly seems naive in today's world. The most effective Trade Unions engage with all political parties."

An EHRC spokesman said: “There are circumstances where discriminating against a person, or restricting their access to work, on the basis of their political beliefs could be unlawful.”