Socialist Party statement
Unite members are alarmed at reports from the latest meeting of the Executive Council (EC) which took place in the week beginning Monday 10 March in Cardiff.
A vote of no confidence was tabled against the chair of the Executive, Andy Green, by a group of EC members, based mainly in the United Left (UL) group. This motion won a narrow majority but didn’t attain the required two-thirds majority. However, the response from the UL supporters was to boycott the rest of the EC meeting, scheduled to take place over five days, while still remaining in the hotel used for the EC.
Understandably, on hearing of the events, Unite members will be angry at the attempted disruption to the leading lay body of the union. This is particularly so at a time when massive industrial and political events are taking place. Starmer is moving onto the austerity offensive. Unite members are engaged in very important disputes like the Birmingham bin strike against the cutting Labour council, which is fully prepared to use the police to harass and even arrest striking workers.
To boycott the EC, unprecedented in the 18-year history of Unite, members would expect it to be clearly justified. But even in the UL supporters’ own statements, this is not clear.
Andy Green was elected as the EC chair at the first meeting of the Executive, newly elected in 2023. The UL had a slim majority and Andy was their candidate. However, he then separated himself from UL, supporting the programme of general secretary Sharon Graham. This is the third time that the UL group has attempted a vote of no confidence. On the previous two occasions, the group accepted that a two-thirds majority was needed. This time, they claim that it can be done through a simple majority vote, and used that as an excuse for their boycott.
The United Left was set up after Unite was formed and played an important role in the election of Len McCluskey as general secretary in the first leadership election of the newly merged union in 2010. At that stage, the Socialist Party was part of the UL. However, after Len’s retirement and in the wake of the defeat of Corbynism within the structures of the Labour Party, the UL has developed into a conservative wing of Unite and opposes the industrially militant ‘transformation’ agenda of Len’s successor as general secretary, Sharon Graham.
In the 2021 general secretary election, the UL candidate, assistant general secretary Steve Turner, stood, in his words, on the basis that the union didn’t need an ‘attack dog’ but someone who could work with Starmer and do deals ‘behind the scenes’.
Under Sharon’s leadership, Unite has taken a step change in its level of industrial action. Since she became general secretary, Unite has called over 1,000 disputes, winning 80%. Those disputes have won £450 million for members. It has also been arguably the foremost union in challenging Starmer’s government, leading a national campaign on the winter fuel allowance cut.
In the first Unite Policy Conference under Sharon’s leadership, just weeks after her election, a motion was passed committing the union to call on Labour councils to stop passing on the cuts and instead move no-cuts, needs budgets. The union has waged a whole number of disputes against Labour councils, including Coventry and Birmingham.
If the United Left had won the general secretary election in 2021, this stand would not have been their starting point and it would have needed an organised struggle by rank-and-file members to bring it into being. During the general secretary election, Turner criticised Sharon’s Organising Department for demanding action from Labour mayors in London and Greater Manchester regions in support of striking bus drivers.
Socialist Party members gave critical support to Sharon and her team in that election because her militant stance was seen by reps and members as pushing the union forward. We stood on the same EC election slate with these reps two years ago. Our members also played an important role in the formation of the new Unite Broad Left (UBL) to further organise and fight for the industrial and political programme that is needed in Unite.
We fight for our distinct programme within the union, on occasions differing from Sharon’s approach. We believe that Unite should be to the fore in the movement against the brutal assault on Gaza and the Palestinian people. We have called for Unite to organise a meeting of reps in the defence and logistics sectors to discuss an independent workers’ position, including defending any workers refusing to carry out work duties because of opposition to the war from reprisals by management.
We also refuse to support Starmer’s increased military spending. As with fossil fuel industries, we demand a just workers’ transition to socially necessary production, and opposition to capitalist war across the world. Transition would involve the nationalisation of these companies, while guaranteeing workers’ jobs and income. We also argue that Unite, Labour’s biggest affiliate, should take the lead in establishing a new workers’ party.
In Andy Green’s statement to branches this week, he speculates that the timing of UL hostility at the EC may be motivated by the imminent publication of reports on alleged historic misconduct surrounding the reported overspend in the Unite hotel and conference centre in Birmingham, the affiliated services, and officer collaboration in blacklisting practices.
All acts of alleged misconduct should be thoroughly and impartially investigated with lay member involvement and oversight – including Birmingham and the allegations about Unite officers colluding in the blacklisting of union reps and activists.
It is essential that United Left are opposed, because of their political and industrial retreats. In our opinion, their ties to Labour and their effective support for Starmer’s government and cutting Labour councils all underpin their desperate power grab at the EC.
Central in this, is to spell out the industrial and political programme necessary to defend the interests of Unite members and the wider working class, especially with the EC and general secretary elections next year.
