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Membership down by 17%

Lyons salary of £87,981 composed of £74,837 basic + £1,800 London Weighting + £3,965 car (1999 figure) + £7,379 pension (1999 figure). Source MSF Conference 2001, Annual Return 1999

On the last Annual Return to the Trade Union Certification Officer, The General Secretary, Roger Lyons, put the total number of members of MSF down as 404,741. In his statement before the first merger ballot Lyons said "400,000 MSF members will go to the polls today" and a letter from the chief executive of Electoral Reform Ballot Services to the Guardian carried the same line.

However it transpires that only 299,106 ballot papers were sent out. Moreover at a hearing in front of the trade Union certification Officer, The General Secretary announced that the membership figure as of March 2001 was 345,434., and that in fact MSF membership is now at this much lower figure, a drop of 17% in a few months.

MSF Hounslow and Feltham Branch submitted the following emergency motion to MSF's Annual Conference:

"The General Secretary and Electoral Reform Ballot Services separately and publicly announced in the lead up to the merger ballot that MSF had over 400,000 members. This was stated in the last official Annual Return, in statements in MSF Works, a letter to the Guardian and on the MSF web site. In announcing the result of the ballot and in statements to the Trade Union Certification Officer after the ballot, they have both said that the membership is in fact 299,106. Conference believes this amounts to misleading the voters that MSF was 1/3 larger than it actually is, which may well have influenced the members' decision whether to join a much bigger union. Conference instructs the NEC to urgently commission an external and independent audit of the membership to establish the correct figure prior to the merger."

Standing Orders Committee did not let Conference see the motion, let alone debate it.

The National Executive Committee costs members around a quarter of a million pounds a year to run (source: 1999 accounts). See who are the most expensive NEC members for the last 5 years. Guess who has claimed nearly £25,000? (It's Bob Braddock). Coincidentally these high cost claimants are thought to be the most supportive of General Secretary Roger Lyons, who has spent up to £900,000 of members money in payoffs to staff who blew the whistle on his own expense claims.
Posted by www.rogerlyons.com on 8th June 2001, updated 14th June