There’s been some recent speculation on the affiliate vote. Some of it’s trolling some of it’s just plain misinformed.
That said, it’s an interesting issue, and one that I’ve a few thoughts on myself.
As far as I can tell the EPMU is probably likely to be pretty balanced between Cunliffe and Robertson which is probably why they decided to offer no endorsement of a particular candidate. My gut instinct is that in the end it’s likely tip more Cunliffe’s way than Robertson’s. But only the voting delegates can know for sure.
In the SFWU it’s more complicated, it’ll be based on the turnout of regular members (who prefer Cunliffe) versus a push by Wellington officials (who prefer Robertson). As with any Servo vote, Auckland engagement will be the deciding factor as more than half of their members are in that region.
The other affiliates – MUNZ, RMTU, Dairy workers, Meat workers – remain an unknown, but those votes will depend very strongly on whether there’s an endorsement of a candidate by each union’s National Executive (and I understand there will be). An endorsement could swing the tide strongly in either direction and would probably also influence the votes of EPMU and SFWU voters too.
Just as an aside, the idea that Shane Jones will get any significant union vote is some shoddy analysis that I suspect is based on the elitist beltway belief that the working class are bigots. The truth is union members have sophisticated and progressive politics – they’re not going to vote for someone who doesn’t have their interests at heart.
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