LTB 115/18 – New CWU membership forms – political fund and data protection opt-ins
No: 115/18
23rd February 2018
TO: ALL BRANCHES
Dear Colleague,
New CWU membership forms – political fund and data protection opt-ins
As set out in LTB 94/18, under the Trade Union Act we are now required to include an ‘opt-in’ to the political fund on our membership forms. This changes the current system whereby members automatically pay the political levy unless they opt out of doing so.
Alongside this, under new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), we will be required to include an ‘opt-in’ on our membership form, with new members needing to opt-in in order to receive any form of communication from the union.
We have added tick-boxes and text to give effect to both of these requirements on the membership forms. The political fund opt-in is at the start of section 4, titled ‘Declaration’; and the data protection opt-in is at the bottom of the form.
As you will appreciate, these are two very significant changes that impact on what we do. We rely on members paying the political levy in order to carry out political work on their behalf and we need to be able to communicate with our members about what we are doing in order to function as a trade union.
It is therefore extremely important that the new membership forms are being used and that we maximise the number of new members opting-in to paying the political levy and to receiving communications about the union’s work. A briefing paper with a Q&A to explain our political work to new members and to persuade them to opt-in is attached to this LTB.
All of our membership forms have been amended to reflect these two changes and you can continue to receive the new forms via the website, contacting membership records lwright@cwu.org, T&FS rwalsh@cwu.org or Postal zmussa@cwu.org at CWU HQ. The revised forms are now available on the website at the www.cwu.org/join-us/postal-applications/.
It is of the upmost importance that from 1st March 2018 only the new forms are utilised and all old forms should be discarded, otherwise the union will be outside of the new legislation.
Any queries on the contents of this LTB should be directed to sdgs@cwu.org.
Yours sincerely
Dave Ward – General Secretary
Tony Kearns – Senior Deputy General Secretary
LTB 115.18 – new CWU membership forms – political fund and data protection opt-ins