Material published on the union’s website and social feeds and activity outside workplaces will not just reach members and committed supporters, and so is being made available to the public.
Purpose test:
Call to action to the public
There is a call to action to the public. However, they are not being called on to vote, they are being called on to ‘show solidarity with striking workers and to lobby ministers in their capacity as the ultimate employers of NHS staff.’
Tone
The material published by the union is critical of the record of ministers as the employers of NHS staff.
Context and timing
The union has campaigned about NHS pay and funding for a significant amount of time. and it is the core job of this union to represent its members’ views on pay and conditions, which includes workload and the proper funding of NHS services. It is widely understood that this is the job of a union.
All parties have significant policies on the NHS so the issue of NHS pay is not closely enough linked in the public mind for campaigning on the policy to be reasonably regarded as campaigning against the governing party. Although the current ministers responsible for NHS pay are Conservative ministers, the union is campaigning against their policy in their capacity as the ultimate employers of NHS staff. The union would act in a similar way if an unacceptable pay offer were received from any government for NHS staff (and indeed has, in the past).
How a reasonable person would see the activity
A reasonable person would think that the intention of the activity was to win a pay rise from ministers in their capacity as the ultimate employers of NHS staff. They would not see the campaign as intended to influence voters.
Even if there had been an election at the time of the campaign, a reasonable person would have thought that the campaign was critical of ministers in their role as part of the government and NHS employers, rather than influencing voters not to vote for their political party.
Taking all these factors into account, this activity cannot reasonably be regarded as intended to influence voters to vote for or against a political party or category of candidates, so the purpose test is not met. The spending on the activity is not regulated.