BNFL paid unions to back new nuclear power stations

from Sunday Herald, 20 August 2006

TRADE unionists have been given thousands of pounds by their government company bosses to campaign in favour of Tony Blair’s new nuclear power programme.

Funding from state-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) paid for airfares, hotels, dinners and “refreshments” for union members from nuclear plants to lobby delegates at Labour and TUC conferences in Brighton last autumn.

BNFL has been accused of using taxpayers’ money to create a pro-nuclear “front” organisation, while the trade unionists involved have been attacked by fellow unionists for “getting into bed with the employer”.

But this is denied by the nuclear trade unions, who insist that they are “defending our jobs, our livelihoods and our communities” from attack.

Documents obtained by the Sunday Herald reveal that £15,050 was claimed in expenses from BNFL for “Nuklear21 union meetings” in 2005-06. Nuklear21 is a campaign group that brings together workers from five trade unions at nuclear plants across the UK to lobby for new reactors.

Included in the expenses was £3311 for activists to attend the annual Labour and TUC conferences in Brighton in September 2005. There, they were able to lobby ministers, MPs and trade union leaders in support of nuclear power.

Copies of the expense claims filed on behalf of Nuklear21 show that £2050 was spent on hotels, £343 on air travel from Newcastle and £275.77 on dinners. At Labour's conference, £75 was spent on a meal at Picasso's Italian restaurant in Brighton on 27 September 2005.

The five unions involved in Nuklear21 are GMB, Amicus, Prospect, TGWU and UCATT. It is led by workers from nuclear plants at Sellafield in Cumbria, Capenhurst in Cheshire and Chapelcross in Dumfries and Galloway and has been lobbying politicians at Westminster and Holyrood to back nuclear power.

But their activities have drawn fierce fire from within the trade union movement. “If somebody gets into bed with the employer, they are totally compromised,” said Ronnie Waugh, a member of the GMB national executive, speaking in a personal capacity. “Their independence is eroded. And they don’t mention within the GMB that they are subsidised by the employer.”

Jean McSorley, from the anti-nuclear group Greenpeace, pointed out that if trade unions wanted a political fighting fund they could levy their members. “For them to go cap-in-hand to their employers is just appalling,” she said.

“They have a legitimate right to fight for their jobs, but they are using illegitimate means – taxpayers’ money.”

Nuklear21’s expense claims were released to the Sunday Herald by BNFL in response to an appeal under the Freedom of Information Act. The company had initially claimed that it did not hold any information about the group’s funding.

But this was overturned after a review by BNFL’s head of taxation, David Canfield. He said the company’s initial attempts to trace documents about Nuklear21 funding were “evidently not sufficient”.

BNFL said last week that it had paid out £15,050 “in support of trade union activities in general”, suggesting that not all the money was spent by Nuklear21. Accredited trade union representatives, it has argued, “have a legitimate role in promoting and defending employment in the nuclear industry”.

Nuklear21’s national secretary Howard Rooms, who works at Sellafield, said: “We’re doing the work of trade unionists in defending our jobs, our livelihoods and our communities.”

“The company has no say in what we lobby for and who we lobby.” There was no conflict in accepting expenses from BNFL while representing its workers on pay and conditions, he argued.

Rooms pointed out that it would be difficult to distinguish between payments for Nuklear21 and for other activities because expense claims were mostly just made for “trade union duties”. He brushed aside criticism of BNFL paying for dinners out in Brighton. “We’ve got to eat, haven’t we?” he said.

Nuklear21 expenses for attending TUC and Labour Party conferences in Brighton, September 2005

Hotels.............................£2,050.00
Air travel............................£343.00
Train fares..........................£157.50
Dinners...............................£275.77
Cash...................................£216.00
Refreshments.......................£42.99
Attendance fees...................£99.00
Advance..............................£110.00
Out of pocket expenses........£17.25

TOTAL.............................£3,311.51

Source: British Nuclear Fuels