Rob Williams, Socialist Party executive committee
Unite the Union is holding its biennial policy conference almost exactly a year since Starmer’s Labour Party won the general election. The conference will be the launchpad for vital elections in Unite over the next year for leadership of the union, in which Unite’s status as a fighting union is at stake. Starmer’s pro-capitalist government and his cutting Labour councils, and Unite’s relation to them, will be the main factor in the union’s elections.
At the start of 2026, the leading lay member body of Unite, the Executive Council (EC), will be elected, and that will then lead into the general secretary election. But the general secretary election has in effect already been kicked off, with the declaration of Simon Dubbins, Unite’s Director of International and Research, that he intends to stand against Sharon Graham.
Challenge to Sharon Graham’s leadership
Simon Dubbins’s declaration brings out into the open the struggle that has been taking place in the main behind the scenes. The struggle was revealed at the March meeting of the EC. Those opposing Sharon Graham, based around the conservative United Left (UL) and Unite Alliance (UA) groupings, boycotted the meeting, rendering it inquorate. They had tabled a vote of no confidence in the EC chair, Andy Green, which, because it didn’t attain a two-thirds majority, was ruled invalid.
In the statement we produced at the time, we drew out the main industrial and political roots of the clash in Unite. We put forward the programme Unite members must fight on in order to forge a leadership that can take the union forward, particularly given the huge challenges posed by this volatile period, in which the bosses and Starmer’s Labour government want workers to pay the price for capitalist crises.
The United Left was established during the formation of Unite in 2007 from the merger of the TGWU and Amicus unions. The Socialist Party worked in the UL when it was seen as the main broad left, supporting Len McCluskey against the right wing, mainly based on the then Amicus leadership.
However, the last general secretary election in 2021, which took place in the aftermath of the defeat of Corbynism in Labour and the victory of Starmer, revealed that the UL was in retreat. The amendments put forward by the UL to motions at the Unite Policy Conference make this clear.
What programme do workers need?
Our approach in the unions, including Unite, takes as its starting point the industrial and political programme needed by reps and members. We put forward our programme, and argue for it in the union, particularly within the left in Unite and among the most combative reps and shop stewards.
We stand for the building of Unite as a fighting militant industrial union, developing and extending its lay member democratic structures. But we also argue that it must have a political strategy that goes hand in hand with its industrial struggles, based on a programme of policies in the interests of Unite members and the working class as a whole. After a year of Starmer in Downing Street, it’s clear that this cannot be constrained within this pro-big business New Labour ‘mark 2’.
We gave critical support to Sharon Graham’s leadership challenge in 2021 because it represented the best option to maintain Unite as a militant industrial union following on from the leadership of previous general secretary Len McCluskey. Sharon was the head of organising in the union, effectively the head of developing the industrial action strategy.
Undoubtedly, under Sharon’s leadership, the union has taken how it undertakes industrial action to a higher and more systematic level. Since she became general secretary, Unite has called over 1,000 disputes, winning 80%. Those disputes have won £450 million for members.
What does United Left’s ‘new way forward’ really represent?
The United Left has found it impossible to attack Sharon over this record. But in his statement, Dubbins promises to “chart a new way forward.” Although he doesn’t say what this entails, the evidence from the trajectory of UL is that it will be a retreat from the industrial militancy under the present leadership, and a move closer to Starmer.
In 2021, the UL’s candidate, Steve Turner, Unite Assistant General Secretary, 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”. During that 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.
Just weeks after Sharon was elected as general secretary, the 2021 Unite Policy Conference passed a motion initiated by Socialist Party members committing the union to call on Labour councils to stop passing on Tory cuts and instead move no-cuts, needs budgets. At that early stage of Sharon’s leadership, the United Left weren’t confident to oppose it. But at the next conference in 2023, UL attempted to reverse this policy.
Given Starmer’s unpopularity, it hasn’t always been straightforward for the United Left to spell out their ‘programme of change’, but given Steve Turner’s approach in 2021 and UL’s actions at the 2023 conference, its starting point would be to take the union into partnership with Starmer and cutting Labour councils.
United Left’s amendments
This is made clear by UL’s proposed amendment to motion 24 at this year’s policy conference: Fighting Local Authority Cuts to Jobs and Services, a motion initiated by Socialist Party members. The UL wants to weaken the motion by deleting the demand for “Unite to call on Labour and other councillors to vote against cuts in jobs and services” and amend the last bullet point to “Unite to work with Labour councillors in lobbying government to increase funding to local government”.
But Unite’s Birmingham bin dispute and the brutal wage cuts of up to £8,000, is a stark reminder that, given the scale of the funding crisis in local government, as across the public sector, so-called partnership with Labour councillors who have spent the last 15 years passing on brutal attacks from Tory and now New Labour governments, will only mean meekly complying with vicious cuts. And that is multiplied on the national scale with the prospect of an austerity offensive from Starmer and Reeves.
Further United Left amendments show that its role is to water down demands on Labour, or at least muddy the waters. The UL amendment to the Employment Rights motion would in reality comply with Starmer’s undefined postponement of the promise to scrap Cameron’s undemocratic 50% industrial action ballot turnout threshold, the main barrier to national action.
And the UL-dominated Standing Orders Committee has attempted to get branches to remove demands for Unite to open up its political strategy to work with left MPs such as Jeremy Corbyn, on pain of having motions ruled out of order.
These amendments by UL must be opposed and defeated at conference. But they open a window into what Unite could look like if Dubbins or any other United Left candidate wins the general secretary election, as well as if the UL/UA axis retains a majority on the Unite Executive.
The Birmingham bin strike is a lightning rod for the whole debate about Unite’s approach to political representation, as it brings together the industrial and political tasks. Unite, a minority union in local government, is prepared to lead the fight against the cutting local authority – the biggest in Western Europe – with Tory-appointed commissioners still in place on the back of the ‘bankruptcy’ notice. Behind them and the Labour council sits Starmer’s government, fully supporting vicious strike-breaking operations against Unite and its members. It is this attack by Starmer that underpins the clash in Unite and the leadership election.
The Socialist Party has our own independent programme and approach. Our members in Unite have played a key role in the building of Unite Broad Left (UBL) as a new left in the union to bring together the best fighting activists. It is vital that the UBL also discusses and sets out its policies and demands.
Socialist Party’s distinct programme
We oppose those like UL who would take Unite backwards both industrially and politically. But we have our distinct socialist programme, which includes disagreeing with Sharon Graham where needed.
We believe that Unite should be to the fore in the movement against the brutal assault by the Israeli regime 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 collective action, while defending any workers who refuse to carry out work duties in opposition to the war from reprisals by management.
The United Left has sought to seize upon Sharon’s approach on Gaza to win over Unite members. But in union meetings, they have been unwilling or incapable of exposing the role of Starmer’s government, under which export licences to the Israeli government have actually increased.
We stand out against giving support to Starmer’s increased military spending. As with the 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 under democratic workers’ control and management, while guaranteeing workers’ jobs and income. It is essential that unions represent their members in every company, industry and sector. But it is paramount that they retain their class independence from the employers and pro-imperialist governments such as Starmer’s. It’s not clear where UL stands on this.
Unite under Sharon Graham’s leadership has stood up to Starmer and his Labour councils, particularly in Birmingham and also Coventry before it, when Sharon suspended Labour councillors who were Unite members. It has led the fight against the cut to the Winter Fuel Allowance, over which Labour has now been forced into a U-turn. So why should workers, even those who work in the defence sector, give one iota of trust to this self-same government, that has already shown that it takes its lead from the bosses?
In contrast, Unite has determinedly defended its members in the oil and gas fields, but its ‘no ban without a plan’ campaign points to the need for a workers’ transition, with no question of climate change scepticism.
Political strategy essential
Starmer’s actions have opened up a political vacuum that Farage’s right-wing Reform UK is trying to fill. It is the responsibility of the unions, including Unite, Labour’s biggest affiliate, to take the lead in establishing a new workers’ party to provide a political alternative in the interests of the working class. While Sharon opposed rule changes at the Unite Rules Conference in 2023 that would have opened up the union’s political approach from being restricted to just supporting Labour, that debate has been more open under her leadership than it would be under United Left.
The latter part of Sharon’s term of office has shown clearly that a political strategy is essential in strengthening the industrial fights.
Her initial period saw Unite take the lead in what became known as the strike wave that reached a peak in 2022-23 – the highest level of sustained strike action for over three decades. The strike wave eventually embraced a number of unions across most sectors, including national struggles in the public sector as well as rail, Royal Mail and BT.
Unite was in the forefront of this industrial militancy, calling a rash of strikes after Sharon’s election in the summer of 2021. It understood that as the economy came out of Covid, the balance of forces in many sectors had tilted towards workers, especially in industries such as transport and logistics where there were huge skills and labour shortages, while inflation was starting to rise but the threat of job losses was low. The conditions were more favourable, but it still required a leadership that was prepared, organised and able to give reps and members confidence and support, for action on such a scale to be taken. A whole number of impressive victories were won in these disputes, some with merely the threat of action.
But it is now increasingly common for there to be more protracted struggles. They can be won – as Unite, along with Unison, have recently shown after a long-running dispute at Livv Housing in Merseyside. However, the industrial terrain has become more complex.
As the economy has stagnated, there has been a rise in closures and large-scale job losses, especially in manufacturing – from Tata Steel in South Wales, Grangemouth in Scotland, and Stellantis vans in Luton. Unite has also had to contend with the phasing out of production in sectors such as oil and gas extraction. All these are areas where Unite has historically high density levels of membership.
But in these difficult defensive struggles, especially against closures and mass redundancies, the level of militant action called for is often at a much higher level, posing the need for mass pickets, occupations and solidarity demonstrations.
But they also raise the need for political demands, such as nationalisation to save jobs and communities. It was a mistake that this wasn’t raised throughout the Tata Steel struggle, particularly when Labour was elected towards the last stage of the battle last summer. The fact that Starmer had to call a special Saturday sitting of Parliament this April to rush through the effective taking over of Scunthorpe’s British Steel works, shows what can be possible if pressure is exerted, especially if it is on a mass scale.
It is essential that Unite reps and members take a broad view of what has taken place in Unite since Sharon Graham was elected as general secretary in 2021, to assess the main direction of the union and what is at stake in these elections. At Unite Policy Conference and in the forthcoming elections, the Socialist Party will put forward its programme in the discussions in the left of the union to arm reps and members for the fight for a fighting and militant Unite.
Socialist Party in Unite meeting
Speakers:
- Hannah Sell, Socialist Party General Secretary
- Suzanne Muna, Unite EC member, (personal capacity)
Wednesday 9 July, immediately after conference ends (5.30pm)
Fecamp Suite, The Old Ship Hotel, Brighton Seafront
All welcome
