Unhappy with union rep conduct

[goteam]

Active union recognised by workplace but we have a rep who is unelected, just took it on because he believed we needed one. Nobody else has time to do this so it has just gone on. I've been a member for 5 years and recently becoming unhappy along with other colleagues / members about this rep using the union to represent their own interests only. This person underperforms in their actual job citing time spent on 'union business' but of us 5 members none of us have any issues and the rep never holds meetings and just seems to enjoy the power and chance to meet with senior managers to promote themselves. We are all picking up the slack with their actual work and it seems unethical. What can we do? We have union issues to raise but a lot of it is about our workloads being so high due to this 'rep'.

Contact your branch secretary or the union head office. There should be proper elections for reps and officials.

This person is not "unelected" - they were returned unopposed because nobody stood against them. So the appropriate response is to find a better rep / stand yourselves. It isn't logical to say that on the one hand you don't have time to do that, but then complain about the amount of time being taken up by the person's union duties when you would get working time to carry those out. Then if you wanted meetings etc., you could organise them.

If there is an issue about high workload that is an employer issue, not a union rep issue (regardless of what you think about the rep). The law says that an employer must give union reps the time to carry out their duties, and whatever arrangements the employer has to provide for that is between them and the union. Employers should be managing the workload based on the staff available to do that work - if this was someone who also legitimately had time off for other reasons, the situation would be exactly the same. If there is a legitimate concern about underperformance whilst this person is "on the job" then that is a matter for management to deal with, as it would be if it were you or anyone else underperforming.

Thanks both.