Maybe the Wolf of Wall Street could explain the TWU's financial returns - I'm having trouble.
Friday, 25 July 2014
The Transport Workers Union's NSW website is here - Wayne Forno tells us that the NSW branch has more than 30,000 members.
The NSW branch website tells us exactly how much each member pays in dues - $617 PA through direct debit or $660 PA through payroll deductions.
Like all Registered Organisations the TWU NSW branch reports to Fair Work Australia annually. It filed two returns for the calendar year 2013:
A financial report - here
A report concerning membership numbers and office holders - here
The arithmetic is not complicated - the TWU tells us that each financial member pays at least $617 in annual membership fees. The TWU NSW branch claims to have 43,835 members. So somewhere in the financial accounts we will looking for about $27 million. Let's go.
That's a statutory declaration about member numbers. So what do the financial accounts tell us?
Just to step through the process - here is the Fair Work Commission website which holds records for every Registered Organisation (ie union) registered under our industrial laws - it looks like this
Down the page is the link for the TWU - it looks like this
Click on it you get this
Bring up NSW and you get this
And under financial reports you'll see this for the year ending 2013. I'll reprint the "comprehensive" financial statement below.
Clearly $27 million is not accounted for in the NSW branch financial records. Either there are some zeros missing or the money must be accounted for elsewhere. That's our mission today - to find it. More soon.