[equiequi (OP)]

Hi, I'm thinking of joining either Prospect or Unite but cant decide. I work as a research assistant at a veterinary charity which has links with academic institutions.

As far as i know there is no one else in a union here. Does anyone else have any experience as researchers joining unions?

Thanks

[Bored chemist]

Well, I admit I might be biased; I'm a rep for Prospect.
However my advice is to find out if any union is recognised by your employer; if so, join that one.
If the links with academia are strong you might be able to join one of the University/ college unions.
If they don't recognise any union then I'd still suggest joining one; I'd recommend Prospect but I'd say look at things like price and services- just like buying insurance.
Almost any may well be better than none.

[alancalverd]

Agreed. Before I became a greedy capitalist and started feathering my nest with the blood of the workers, I was an officer for the Institution of Professional Civil Servants. Didn't do me much good (apart from cheap insurance) but it was very helpful to some of my juniors. There's a potential career interest too: despite being (necessarily) politically neutral, IPCS had a seat on the local Trades Council which gave me a personal entree into the TUC and the Labour Party.

I had one substantial victory: all UK government laboratories, apart from those on ships, now have soft toilet paper, thanks to a resolution proposed by one of my staff (and amended at our national conference by a guy from Fisheries Research who pointed out that the stuff is worse than useless on a small trawler).

And a mad anecdote: I had to join the Musicians Union for a short TV appearance. Problem is that the MU makes a political donation to the Communist Party, verboten for a civil servant. Urgent phone call to the Home Office, where a charming chap dug out Form 36B - request to Musicians Union to divert political subscription to the Benevolent Fund."No problem sir, it's a longstanding agreement". How delightfully British.

[Bored chemist]

gave me a personal entree into the TUC and the Labour Party.

For the record, the IPCS, which became the IPMS and then Prospect is not, and (as far as I'm aware) never was affiliated to the Labour Party.

If the Musician's Union had made a contribution to the Tories, the same issue would have arisen, and (much) the same solution would have been been employed.

Re "I had one substantial victory: all UK government laboratories, apart from those on ships, now have soft toilet paper, "
Not when I joined...
We still had the famed "tracing paper"  labelled " provided by the government service" or some such. We had to fight our own independent battle for better bog roll.

In answer to the OP's question, if management think soft loo roll is worth arguing about (and they did), you need a Union.

[alancalverd]

IPCS certainly had no party affiliation. As I stated, my involvement was via the local Trades Council, which was a talking shop for all unions but could make representations to the TUC.

Things may have changed but in my day pretty much everybody below Perm Sec was "politically free":. At least one good friend and senior principal was secretary of his local Conservative party, and I was not prevented from standing for a local council election on a Labour ticket, nor being chairman of a CND branch. However certain organisations were considered to be a threat to democracy, and the Communist party was specifically proscribed. The MU form was very specific. I can't think of any similar requirement unless Equity was affiliated to the IRA, which seems unlikely.

I revisited the lab around 5 years after the soft paper resolution, and asked how things had worked out. Apparently IPCS had been diligently pursuing progress and had been assured that replacement would take place when present stocks were exhausted. Further enquiry elicited the information that "present stock" of government-issue Bronco actually amounted to a hangar-full, probably at Staverton (though that may be an Official Secret). AFAIK there is still a cupboard full of the stuff in at least one RSG bunker. Lessons learned from Dunkirk, I think, though the tons of mule shoes at Gaydon may have been scrapped by now.