Unions Sit on £1.36bn as Labour Hands Them £500k Fines on Bosses

News | By Matt, Editor

£1.36 billion. That is what Britain’s biggest 25 trade unions are sitting on in general funds, more than double the £737 million they held in 2018. In the last two years alone their pot jumped by £238 million. And under Andy Burnham, Labour has just finished handing those same unions cheaper strike ballots, longer mandates, shorter notice periods and fines of up to £500,000 on any boss who blocks them from the workplace.

The figures come from a Telegraph analysis of hundreds of AR21 returns, the mandatory annual accounts unions must file. Published this morning, the paper’s verdict is blunt: Labour is “readying the unions for war with the next Right-wing government”.

Key facts

• Largest 25 unions with published AR21 forms: combined general funds £1.36bn, up from £737m in 2018; +£238m in the last two years (Telegraph).
• Workplace access: unions can demand in-person and digital access; “rogue” employers face fines rising to £500,000 (Employment Rights Act / Telegraph, April 2026).
• Strike rules already loosened: electronic and hybrid ballots from August 2026; mandates 6→12 months; notice 14→10 days; 40% “important public services” threshold removed; minimum service levels abolished (UNISON / Telegraph).
• Strike days: 691,000 in the year to July 2026, against 4.2 million in the year to July 2023 under the Tories (ONS via Telegraph).
• Labour took £4.9m from unions last year — the lowest since Electoral Commission records began in 2001 (Telegraph).
• Reform has pledged to repeal the Employment Rights Act 2025, cut civil service numbers hard, and scrap parts of the Equalities Act. Danny Kruger says Reform is writing contingency plans against a union “war chest”.

What Labour has given the unions

Last week unions won a legal right they had chased for years: to recruit and organise workers on site and online. Firms that refuse can be branded “rogue employers” and hit with escalating penalties — £75,000, then £150,000, then up to £500,000 for a third breach, the government confirmed when it raised the cap from an earlier £150,000 proposal.

Have your sayTap to comment

That sits on top of the Employment Rights Act changes that took effect through 2025 and 2026. UNISON this month called electronic balloting a “game changer for strengthening our strike readiness and increasing our industrial power”. Postal-only ballots are gone. Mandates last a year instead of six months. Notice to employers is ten days, not fourteen. The 40% support threshold that once applied to important public services is out. Minimum service levels are abolished.

Burnham set the tone at Labour conference in September. Britain, he told delegates, had given “trade unions and the cooperative movement to the world”. The praise has been followed by statute.

Tomorrow the PCS civil servants’ union is debating a motion to ‘counter a hostile Reform government’ with ‘sustained industrial action’: they are planning to go on strike if we win. This is Reform’s response.

Any civil servant who seeks to undermine ministerial authority and the…

— Danny Kruger (@danny__kruger) May 20, 2026

The war chest

The Telegraph’s trawl of AR21 forms shows the money building quietly. Much of the £1.36bn is tied up in property, investments and pensions. But the paper says cash set aside for future strikes is growing too. Strike days have collapsed under Labour — 691,000 in the year to July 2026 against 4.2 million in the Tory chaos year to July 2023 — which suits a government that needs calm. The concern on the Right is what that war chest is for once Labour leaves office.

That fear is not theoretical. In May the Public and Commercial Services union, which represents nearly 200,000 civil servants, voted to double its surplus target from 5% to 10% and ring-fence the money until at least 2029. The motion said Nigel Farage’s rise “raises the real threat” of a Number 10 “deeply hostile to both trade unions and to its own workforce”, and that the fund was for “industrial, legal and campaigning decisions” against a “hostile government”. Sky News / Yahoo reported the vote at the time.

Since Labour came in, wages have stagnated for most.

Meanwhile, their paymasters in the public sector unions have received repeated inflation-busting deals.

Which you're paying for. How is that fair? pic.twitter.com/O6ccaFLsPL

— Robert Jenrick (@RobertJenrick) October 20, 2026

Reform’s reply

Danny Kruger, the Reform MP leading the party’s preparation for government, told the Telegraph his side is not waiting to be bounced. “We’re very conscious that there are plans being developed in the unions to try and sabotage the plans that Reform have for reforming our economy, and the Civil Service in particular,” he said. “We are building our own contingency plans to ensure that the unions will not be able to hold a Reform government to ransom. There has been talk of a general strike, and what is worrying is that it looks like unions are coordinating a war chest or strike fund in order to fight us.”

On the PCS motion itself Kruger was sharper still. By naming opposition to a specific “hostile” government as the reason for future action, he argued, the union had taken itself outside a lawful trade dispute. Anyone who struck on that basis, he said, would “no longer have a job to return to”. Reform’s published plans include cutting Whitehall headcount by tens of thousands and replacing permanent secretaries with political appointments.

Burnham’s lost support from credible economists so he’s resorted to dishing out jobs to his mates.

I’m sure the £248 million in donations the unions have given Labour since 2001 had absolutely nothing to do with it! https://t.co/3009jY7bau

— Robert Jenrick (@RobertJenrick) September 16, 2026

Paymasters, not partners

Labour’s cash relationship with the unions is weaker than it was — £4.9m last year is a historic low — but the legislative relationship has never been warmer. This site has already covered how Rayner’s Employment Rights package lets workers with no right to work sue their bosses, and the older fight over union donations versus Reform’s donor cash. The pattern is the same: rights and money flow one way, towards the organised left, while small firms and taxpayers pick up the risk.

Business groups warned £500,000 fines and forced digital access would make British firms slower and less competitive. Labour pressed on. UNISON now talks openly about “stronger industrial action mandates” and “industrial power”. That is the point of the law.

Labour is readying the unions for war with the next Right-wing government!
Telegraph analysis of hundreds of documents reveals how the Government’s actions are ushering in a new golden age for striking workers!
https://t.co/QxgvHsw8p3

— Bob For A Full Brexit (@boblister_poole) November 7, 2026

Our view

You do not rebuild a £1.36bn union war chest and rewrite strike law at the same time by accident. Burnham praises the unions on the conference stage, then his government hands them electronic ballots, year-long mandates, ten-day notice and half-million-pound fines on any employer who objects. Strike days are quiet now because Labour is in power. The money and the new rights are being banked for the day it is not. Reform says it will repeal the Act and face the unions down. Voters who run shops, farms and factories should ask why their own government spent two years arming the other side.

Should Labour keep arming the unions with easier strikes and £500k fines on bosses? Vote in our poll below.

Sources

• The Telegraph, 7 November 2026: AR21 analysis; £1.36bn / £737m / £238m; Burnham conference quote; Kruger contingency / war chest quotes; strike-day ONS figures; £4.9m union donations; Reform pledges
• The Telegraph, 9 April 2026: £500,000 fine cap; £75k / £150k ladder; “rogue employers”
• UNISON, November 2026: e-balloting “game changer”; 12-month mandates; 10-day notice; minimum service levels abolished
• Sky News via Yahoo, 21 May 2026: PCS doubles surplus target; “hostile” Reform government motion; Kruger unlawful-strike warning
• Photo: Andy Burnham arrives at 10 Downing Street with Marie-France van Heel, 20 July 2026. Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street, Open Government Licence v3.0 (cropped)

Related

• ‘Farcical’: Workers With No Right to Work Can Still Sue Their Bosses Under Rayner’s Law
• Union Donations Versus Reform Crypto Cash