A Unite the Union member considers the choice offered by the two contenders for the post of General Secretary.

My ballot paper dropped through the letterbox today. Members of Unite the Union have a binary choice of potential General Secretaries – stick with the incumbent candidate Sharon Graham, or vote instead for Simon Dubbins, the union’s International Officer. 

 It’s hardly unusual for elections like this to become polarised, but even by the standards of internal union contests the debate around this one has become intensely factional and bitter.   Yet many members of Unite might be wondering what to make of contest in which the candidates paint a near-diametrically opposed picture of where the union is at. I’m not on any of the union’s internal structures or a member of staff – I don’t have a ringside seat for what’s going on inside my union. Like others, I’m trying to make sense of what’s happening on the basis of what we can tell from the public record of stances taken since Graham’s election in 2021.

For Sharon Graham, Unite has been making strides forward and needs more of the same going forwards. Describing herself as the “worker’s candidate”, she points to an upsurge in the number of industrial disputes the union has supported, with a decent success rate – “having put over £700 million into members’ pockets from successful disputes alone.”

This sounds impressive. Of course, increasing the number of disputes per se is not in itself something to celebrate. Most workers would rather have reps who can negotiate improved terms without having to walk out on strike. Nevertheless, assuming that disputes are required in order to shift intransigent employers, then it’s very welcome that the union is prepared to back the workers. The focus on rebuilding organised strength in the workplace has been positive.

Graham’s narrative suggests that this turn “back to the workplace” has been enabled by withdrawing from the “rabbit hole” of involvement in parliamentary or internal Labour politics. As I will explain, I think this is deeply misleading. But you can see the logic of her claim that concentrating on getting the union’s own house in order and delivering on jobs, pay and terms and conditions of members in the workplace shows Unite is getting back to basics and delivering results.

So why entertain the idea of change? The rosy picture offered by Graham is miles away from that presented by Dubbins. For the latter, the union is utterly riven with bitter factional disputes resulting in a demoralised staff and hamstrung structures. We’ve already seen Unite officers organised by the GMB take strike action against their own employer, while rumours of bullying, harassment and a toxic workplace culture are rife.  

Just as troublingly, Unite has made a noise about cutting the funds it gives to the Labour Party, but continues to donate huge amounts while having literally left the room and abandoned all efforts to try to pressure the leadership to deliver on the political priorities of members. It’s understandable that the union would withdraw funding from politicians whose actions are contrary to Unite policies. But inexplicably, Graham has failed to engage even with the most long-standing allies of Unite in its own Parliamentary Group, and largely failed to resource the campaigns of left Labour MPs even where their seats were under direct threat. Is it so hard to cut funds to those who don’t support Unite policies, and continue to back those on our side?

For Dubbins, it seems, what looks from one angle like Graham’s single-minded focus on the workplace, looks like a narrow and in some ways apolitical industrial agenda which refuses to engage the bigger picture of collective struggles beyond Unite’s own ranks. From his position as International Officer he will have seen first-hand how issues like the genocide in Palestine, the climate crisis or the relentless pressure to increase arms spending were deprioritised or even deliberately obstructed.

Of course where members work in fossil fuel extraction or defence manufacturing the issues of jobs and the transition to socially useful forms of production need to discussed carefully and concerns addressed. Graham, however, has chosen to make a narrow appeal to sections of her internal selectorate over questions which are fundamental to the lives of working class communities across the globe and for generations to come. The spectacle of joining forces with GMB boss Gary Smith to block Ed Miliband and pave the way for a right wing Chancellor must surely be embarrassing to the ultra-left grouplets still backing Graham.

Graham is very cynically trying to appeal to two very different audiences within the union. On the one side are those who are disgusted at Labour and want there to be some kind of new left party emerge from the rubble (given they don’t back the Greens, and have judged Corbyn’s Our Party to have run itself into the ground, it’s hard to see where they think this will appear from). On the other, the rejection of Labour appeals to the most apolitical or even reactionary layers of our class who will happily trash the environment, back wars and deny basic social security to benefit claimants and look to the union only as some form of social insurance. 

But with the populist far right representing a real threat of forming the next government, is it really a good strategy to ape their rhetoric about “professional politicians” as though Richard Burgon and Rishi Sunak are interchangeable?  Where is Unite actively engaging its membership in a discussion about what the divisive racist politics of Reform UK represent, and why they are a threat to working people? From this perspective, it’s very telling that Graham as “the worker’s candidate” has practically nothing to say about Unite Community – whose members include disabled people, retirees, carers, young people struggling to find secure work and more. It appears they are only tolerated as minor cheerleaders for “industrial struggle”. Little wonder that key Unite Community organising officers are backing Dubbins instead.

The claim that Unite faces a choice between taking workplace organising seriously or diverting attention towards trying the influence Labour is utterly false. It’s possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. If we stand back and watch Burnham fail to deliver the change working class communities are crying out for, we are effectively preparing for life under a far right government. Rather than walking out of the room and leaving an “empty chair” in the discussion, the Unite General Secretary could be blocking with Unison leader Andrea Egan and other left affiliates to exert serious pressure at the top of the  Labour party and possibly save Burnham from those around him.   

Yes, organising workers industrially to achieve more jobs and better pay and conditions in the workplace is fundamental to any trade union. But that’s not where our horizons end.   Our communities are often bitterly divided on racial, religious and ethnic grounds. Many of us have been working for the last few weeks in intense heat, incontestably the result of man-made climate change. Ordinary families in Palestine are mourning their lost children, killed in a genocide in which UK-based components were exported for use by the Israeli authorities.    Our cost of living is still rising because of Trump’s latest military escapade in Iran. Aren’t these trade union issues too? It’s not clear that Graham thinks they are. Dubbins seems to get it.  

All things considered, I think it’s time for change. I’ll put my X by SImon Dubbins.  

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/skuds/3736995016 Creator: Andrew Skudder Licence: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic CC BY-SA 2.0 Deed