Fight to change the union from a prop for Starmer to one that fights for members 

Socialist Party members in Usdaw

The two senior elected officials in retail and distribution union Usdaw, general secretary Paddy Lillis and deputy general secretary Dave McCrossen, both announced in mid-February that they will retire in July 2025.

Over the seven years since they took office, Usdaw has slipped back in membership, to around 360,000 from 431,000 in December 2018. This is in part due to the situation in the retail and distributive sector, with factors such as competition from online retailers and big cuts and closures on the high street, and the bulk of members having been on the frontline of the Covid pandemic.

But the inaction of the leadership meant that Usdaw members did not take part in the 2022-23 strike wave. The cuts and closures faced by workers in retail have not been fought. Other unions in the distributive sector, in particular Unite under the leadership of Sharon Graham, did take action over pay and conditions and won victories.

Confidence to fight

Those victories have increased the confidence of workers in this sector. Now there are more strike ballots of Usdaw members, and increased wages being won.

In Morrisons, when pensions were attacked in 2024, Usdaw began preparations to ballot supermarket workers there for the first time in many years. This follows the GMB union organising strike action in selective Asda stores last year.

Deteriorating living standards in society have knock-on effects on retail workers, such as an increase in shoplifting. Usdaw’s last survey showed that attacks on retail workers have doubled, while shoplifting has increased by a third. Usdaw’s ‘Freedom from Fear’ campaign has focused on legal changes, but companies which short-staff stores and privatise in-store security should not be let off the hook by the union.

With large numbers of retail store closures and job losses announced in the first months of the year, including 3,000 in Sainsbury’s and 400 jobs at risk in a Tesco warehouse, plus the scandal of ‘freelance’ retail workers not being paid, it’s clear that there are further conflicts over pay, jobs and conditions to come.

Usdaw members will need a leadership which can stand up to these challenges, with active campaigning to mobilise members, including preparing for strike action when necessary.

No to partnership

Since the 1990s, Usdaw has been to the fore among trade union leaders seeking ‘partnership’ with big employers. These agreements make it much harder for members to fight for their interests. But bosses and workers are not equal ‘partners’: retail wages have stagnated since the 1990s relative to the cost of living, while the big supermarket chains have become hugely profitable businesses. For example, Tesco projects an operating profit of £2.9 billion for this year, and Sainsbury’s expects to make £1 billion.

There is growing resentment at this among members. There are repeated calls and support at Usdaw conferences (ADMs – Annual Delegate Meetings) for voting on pay offers to be restored in Tesco, and to end binding arbitration being written into the recognition agreement with Morrisons. A motion to this year’s ADM calls for a review of partnerships altogether.

It is essential that the union has an independent position from that of the bosses. Yet Usdaw’s most recent document on the future of the retail sector was launched alongside the bosses’ organisation, the British Retail Consortium! Retail bosses may well support Paddy Lillis’s call to level the tax burden across the sector (to boost their profits), but they will still resist attempts to increase pay and strengthen workers’ rights on the grounds of ‘affordability’, so as not to cut into their profits!

MPs that support us

Usdaw’s leadership was a key bulwark of transforming the Labour Party into ‘New Labour’ – a reliable party for the bosses – under Tony Blair. Usdaw nominated Owen Smith in the leadership ‘coup’ against Jeremy Corbyn. However, a sizeable minority on the union’s executive supported Corbyn, including Socialist Party member Amy Murphy, who was elected Usdaw president from 2018-2021. Lillis then backed Keir Starmer.

But as Starmer fails to deliver for working-class people, ruling in the interests of big business, even right-wing union leaders can come into collision with the government under pressure from their members. At Labour Party conference, for example, Usdaw backed the Unite motion calling for reinstatement of the winter fuel allowance. The union also supports the abolition of the two-child benefit cap, over which seven Labour MPs were suspended.

Many Usdaw members will ask why not one member of the Usdaw-sponsored group of MPs in parliament was prepared to support those seven? Members would expect Usdaw to contact pro-worker MPs – including Corbyn, independents and suspended Labour MPs – to establish a group in parliament that will speak out in favour of union policies, not just the policies acceptable to the pro-big business outlook of Starmer’s leadership.

Left candidates for general secretary and deputy general secretary on a fighting industrial and political programme could help transform Usdaw into the fighting union retail and distributive workers need.

The last time a contested general secretary election took place was in 2008. Socialist Party member Robbie Segal won 40% of the vote. It is therefore not inevitable that Usdaw will remain a prop for New Labour and Starmer.

Usdaw members who support this approach should join with Socialist Party members in helping to build the Usdaw Broad Left as a campaigning left group within the union, bringing together reps and activists who want to take this struggle forward against those at the top of the union who cosy up to Starmer and the bosses.