THE RESULT OF the election for general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) may be scrubbed from the record, and the vote re-run, after it was discovered that ballot papers were not dispatched to around 3,000 of the union’s members.
The error – which affected around 10% of the union’s entire voting membership – was revealed in a circular from the assistant general secretary, Ben Selby, on 4 February. It came to light only after Steve Wright had been declared the victor in the election, defeating incumbent Matt Wrack by a margin of 1,752 votes.
The union has reported the bungle to the official regulator – the ‘certification officer’ – and now awaits a determination on next steps.
Elections for senior positions in trade unions – including that of general secretary – are governed by very strict legislation. That legislation requires that all members are sent a ballot form through the post and given an equal opportunity to vote. In that regard, the election process for FBU general secretary plainly did not comply with the law. On that basis, it is hard to see how the certification officer will do anything other than declare the election null and void and order a full re-run.
Given the scale of Wright’s victory first time around, few will expect a re-run to deliver a different outcome. And, for his part, Matt Wrack may not desire a re-run. But those facts may prove immaterial. The certification officer may conclude that she has no choice but to ensure the law is upheld. She will also doubtless want to avoid giving the impression that it would be acceptable for a trade union in the future to disenfranchise a significant chunk of its membership in an election provided it was confident the outcome would not be affected. That would set a dangerous precedent.
Screw-ups of this kind should not happen in major trade union elections. FBU members are entitled to a proper explanation of what went wrong. A re-run may cost the union a lot of money. In his circular, Selby laid the blame squarely at the door of the independent scrutineer – Popularis – tasked with managing the election process (though he did acknowledge that the error was ‘missed by the union when final ballot figures were exchanged’).
It would certainly be surprising if Popularis did make such a serious error. The company has been established for a long time and has managed many significant elections throughout the trade union movement and beyond. Indeed, it has been the go-to scrutineer for the FBU over many years, and nothing like this has happened previously. So why did something go so drastically wrong this time? Selby’s circular tells us very little in that regard.
In the interests of transparency, the union’s report to the certification officer should be shared with members. We are entitled to know the facts. After all, it is our money that may be used to fund a fresh election.
Readers of this blog will no doubt recall that, in 2021, we exposed how the-then leadership dishonestly claimed that Popularis was responsible for a controversial decision to suspend the election for the position of regional secretary for Scotland. In fact, as we showed, Popularis had not taken the decision at all; it had been taken by the leadership itself. We are therefore entitled to an assurance that the wrong people are not being blamed this time.
We are also entitled to know that measures have been put in place to prevent such a blunder occurring again.