“Bad bosses take note.” That was the message of the new general secretary of the Unite trade union, Labour’s largest affiliate. Sharon Graham has stated her priority in very clear terms: putting Unite members and workplaces first. She has become the first woman to lead Unite – meaning that it and Unison, the two largest unions in the country, as well as the TUC itself, are now led by women.
Discussion of Graham’s insurgent victory inevitably turns to what this will mean for Labour. As it was founded by trade unionists, that is inevitable. Yet in many ways it does a disservice to trade unions that we talk about them so much through the prism of the Labour party.
Graham’s victory is a reminder that internal trade union elections are primarily about trade unions and their members, not Labour and its leaders. Her campaign was focused on workplace issues. To the extend that she talked about Labour, it was to argue that she would “stop [Unite] becoming a branch of the Labour party”.
I served as the trade union liaison manager for Ed Miliband when he was leader of the Labour party. At that time, Graham struck me as a person who was completely uninterested in anything that did not deliver for her members. Her outlook was driven by organising and the union’s “leverage” strategy, which uses every single available means to achieve workplace victories. Her attention to the mass of detail of that work was deeply impressive. We are likely to hear a lot more about leverage and workplace organising now.
Still, there are political considerations that flow from her victory, both for Labour and for progressive politics more generally.
With the dust settling, Unite remains left-led. The top two candidates in the election were both from the left. The most rightwing candidate came third. So ends a long-cherished dream of many on Labour’s right: a route to political dominance through gaining control of its biggest trade union affiliate. That was always something of a fantasy given the executive of that union is so solidly leftwing – its members nominated Rebecca Long-Bailey for leader. But Graham’s victory has burned the notion to the ground.
Members of Unite have provided a salutary lesson for those who wish to push labour movement politics rightwards. The candidate painted as the most pro-Keir Starmer, Gerard Coyne, ran a campaign that was highly reliant on traditional media tactics, culminating in an article for the Sun newspaper in which he attacked his fellow candidates as hard left. At one point, his team declared: “Three days to save Unite the Union, the labour movement and the country.” Quite a claim. All of these appeals to move off to the right fell flat.
Some have inferred that Labour’s leadership will take comfort from Graham’s lack of emphasis on Westminster politics. Yet she is an industrial trade unionist who will want to advance her members’ cause. It is highly likely that the union will use its relationship with Labour to pursue its industrial priorities. The tone and emphasis of its approach may change, but Unite and Labour’s other unions will undoubtedly be an obstacle to anyone who wants to distance the party from the trade union movement.
How this develops will be very interesting – if Unite under Graham can combine political activity closely with industrial priorities in new and imaginative ways, then it could prove to be very powerful. For instance, organising to secure trade union recognition for Amazon workers is primarily a workplace issue, but it is not hard to see that huge political pressure can also be part of the armoury of such a campaign, in and outside the Labour party. And it is highly likely that Graham’s focus on leverage and organising will lead to debates in other unions about how to revitalise the labour movement – which, as we can see from years of flagging wage growth, needs to grow in strength.
The question of what Labour under Starmer stands for continues to be asked by voters and commentators – but the unions want an answer too. And it’s not just Unite: the new leaders of Unison and the GMB are no pushovers. Unison – the biggest public sector union in Britain and one of Starmer’s earliest leadership backers – has just seen its national executive council move significantly leftwards.
The fact remains that the Labour party needs the unions. After more than 10 years in opposition in Westminster, Labour has to go much further to demonstrate its relevance to trade union members, just as it does with the electorate as a whole. The unions are a vast network of millions of people; through that connection they provide expertise about the working lives of the voters. They are deeply embedded in questions of work in modern Britain; and they are much more trusted by their members as message-carriers than politicians.
So, the party ought to move very quickly to extinguish some dangerous fires. It will not have gone unnoticed to the general secretaries of two trade unions that their members who work for the Labour party itself are voting on whether they would be prepared to strike over restructuring and job losses. At the same time, the small but highly effective bakers’ union is now considering whether it wishes to remain affiliated to the party. Losing an affiliate may be attractive to some, but it would be seen as a damaging narrowing of Labour when it desperately needs to settle its internal wrangling and focus on the electorate.
If it can overcome its divisions to face the voters, Labour should consider learning a lesson from Unite’s general secretary race. As a general union, it has members across the private and public sectors, from cleaners to engineers, public transport workers to white collar staff. A message about the workplace resonated. The pandemic has exposed the sheer extent of insecure work, inadequate sick pay, severe underinvestment in public services and a lack of genuine support from government for the key workers on whom the economy relies. There can be little doubt that very many people want to hear that this can change. Politicians of all parties – as well as bad bosses – should take note.
Simon Fletcher is a former adviser to Keir Starmer, Jeremy Corbyn and Ed Miliband. He previously served as chief of staff to the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, from 2000 to 2008
