*Original image credit -* *Sammie Chaffin*

Jonathan Williams is unusual in several dimensions. His career trajectory is one you could feasibly call meteoric, an American Dream bootstraps story if you like; equally unusual is his continued dedication to equality and fairness, values that many people lose when they cross class lines.

Abject poverty looms large in the places touched by Thatcherism, and Jonathan’s original home is one of those places. He got involved with unions when an employer handled his personal difficulties badly, demanding that he returned to work after a bereavement without giving him the time he needed.

“I contacted my trade union, asked them to help me out and they were rubbish, to be honest, so I contacted the GMB and asked if I could train up as a trade union rep so I could help people out who might be in my situation.”

The national rep for GMB at the time was the catalyst for Jonathan’s move from union representative to lawyer, encouraging him to make the change.

“He said ‘you’re wasted doing this, go and be a lawyer’, so that’s what I did.” Jonathan now represents the GMB legally, a career move he recognises as being ‘full circle’.

Jonathan tells me about a client he had about ten years ago whose experience exemplifies the kind of nonsensical treatment many employees are subject to - a single mum whose shift patterns and working hours were changed with flagrant disregard for her parenting responsibilities and personal needs. Irregular shifts and additional hours meant she had to find childcare that she, realistically, couldn’t afford. Between income tax, childcare costs and benefits reductions as a result of increased income, she actually ended up at a financial loss. That is, of course, leaving aside the stress and exhaustion she would incur as a result of these aggregated factors.

“I think it worked out as a couple of hundred quid that she was losing out on…clearly, our benefit system’s broken.”

Malcolm Tory's book “Money for Everyone” is where Jonathan found out about universal basic income as a concept, and fell in love with the idea straight away. It filled in pieces of the frustrating puzzle that many workers are subject to and have little defence against. This revelation is what led to the birth of UBI Lab Wales, and the project has thus far made incredible progress. “I'd read about that trial in London where they've given homeless people basic income and it was really effective. At the time I just helped set up a pro bono clinic for homeless people to give advice about any issues that they have.” Jonathan sought to conduct a similar trial in Wales. He was actually getting somewhere with it, too, but then the pandemic shut everything down. The conversations had been started, though, and determination to get it off the ground has paid off a year later. After a couple of conversations with politicians and trade unionists in Cardiff, the idea was gaining support and momentum.

The lockdowns during the first year or so of the pandemic may have actually helped - everyone was at home, online, rather than out and about, and it meant people were more involved and aware with the new UBI Lab and the concept of UBI than they may ordinarily have been.

"I joined labour when Ed Milliband was elected leader…
There's this inextricable link between trade unionism and Labourism, so it's sort of like the natural thing to do."

“The three biggest things for me politically at the moment, are climate change, universal basic income and Welsh independence.”

Jonathan refers to Wales as being ‘strapped’ to Westminster. This could be considered especially astute during Tory governments. The Green party in Wales advocate for nationalisation, a universal basic income and as the top three points of their policy; these ideas make the Greens appear radically leftist in comparison to the Tory party. While Westminster houses a tory government, the political climate is anchored to the right. Wales, with its significant history of voting labour, is not necessarily given the leeway to lean further left than labour with the right wing influence of Westminster. Welsh independence would allow this further-left lean, posits Jonathan, who stands to the left of the labour party. It’s difficult to produce change in the context of a generational loyalty to one party or one way of thinking - many Welsh families have voted labour for generations, and while that’s better than the historical tory backing you find in England, it is difficult to sway people away from generational trends and ideas. Jonathan places great emphasis on this.

“Welsh labour are a different beast to UK labour at the moment”. Welsh labour have piloted basic income, and they have more national support than UK labour has in England; however, Jonathan’s problem with them is that they don’t put their money where their mouth is. “they're more to the left than UK Labour, but the fact that they moan about Westminster without offering any real solution is what irks me. They continue to believe that Westminster is the source of the problems in Wales when it clearly, in my view, is not. The UK Labour party no longer openly support trade unions in their fight for better pay and I think that's unforgivable. Labour was born out of the trade union movement, and yet they’re not supporting workers to strike. I think they've lost their way, hence why I left.”

More about the author

David vs Goliath: In conversation with the people Doing The Work for UBI

AJ Whittle - Linked In