Postal Ballot Research Articles

John Reid reports: X3J3 meeting, November 1986

This was a very active meeting, with over 150 working documents, most of which were corrections and improvements to the draft standard, S8. The plan is to retypeset it immediately after the meeting (the chairman, vice-chairman, and editor are all staying behind to help) and send it out to members for a postal ballot over the period December 1st to January 5th. Only three members (IBM, DEC and Peritus) opposed holding such a vote. When asked how they anticipated voting in this ballot, two members (IBM and DEC) said 'no' and 5 abstained, so there seems every prospect for the required 2/3 majority. The February meeting will be devoted to considering the reasons for any 'no' votes and any comments that accompany 'yes' votes. Hopefully, we will forward the document to our parent committee, X3, in February. We will also forward it to IS0.

Trade union political funds: a retrospective analysis

This article examines the results of the political fund review ballots required under the 1984 Trade Union Act. It contradicts the pessimistic predications with the 100 per cent success and examinès the reasons for this. Balloting methods are analysed and workplace ballots are found to be more democratic than postal ballots, without influencing the outcome

Postal ballots—some practical considerations

This article concentrates upon some of the practical difficulties surrounding postal ballots—level of membership involvement, the problems of contacting paid up members, the drafting of questions on ballot papers and—possibly the most important issue—the degree to which the results moderate outcomes.

Democracy from the inside: the British AUEW(ES) and the Australian AMWSU

Democracy within trade unions has been the subject of considerable academic and practical discussion. This article compares the experience of two unions, one British and one Australian. It reveals that the focal point of discussion in both has been the extent of the relationship between the election of officials and union democracy and the relative merits of election by postal ballot and ballots at branch meetings.

The Library World Volume 57 Issue 4

IT is heartening to librarians who begin a winter's work to read more personally a few recent conference utterances. In the changing pattern of contemporary life the library has become an indispensable ingredient and not merely an ornament or an amenity, although it may also be that. Such a phrase, uttered fifty years ago, would have been met with a curl of contempt upon the lip of most hearers—so we are told. But that was the effect of Sir Philip Morris's conference address, to which we have turned again with profit. Yet before our complacency grows we may also note his view that, while modern life without libraries is impossible, our tendencies hitherto have been unplanned and this is a source of strength not without its dangers. When such statements are made there seems a certain vagueness about them. We recall that young librarians were not admitted to the special abbreviated matriculation that was available to others after the first World War because they “were not an organized profession.” With our Association, Charter, Examinations, and Diplomas, which such a decision then ignored, many were left wondering what the word organized meant. If we are unplanned, or have been, in what way are we so? Every year, indeed, increases the appropriateness of our training and testing systems, and their difficulty. Every year sees the recognition of the unity in librarianship in spite of the superficial differences we deal with below; every year sees the development of library research, intercommunication and almost universal co‐operation. As for differences, Mr. F. C. Francis in his eloquent address stressed the need for a flexible, genial individualism in libraries. Probably our President was leading us to contemplate the views the Council advanced in its motion to the Annual General Meeting which, in the interests of efficiency, would transfer the responsibility for libraries to larger local government authorities. The postal ballot on the Council resolution demanded at Southport has now been declared. 8,502 members were entitled to vote, about 3,340 were excluded for non‐payment of their current subscriptions, and 3,538 returned correct ballot papers. The majority for the Council was 1,150. Such ballots are necessarily secret and no inferences can be drawn from the figures, except that the Council has a modest mandate to go ahead. We are sure that discretion will be observed in the choice of time and manner of doing that.