A close ally of Ed Miliband has been attacked by a senior official in Britain's largest trade union after he criticised union campaign tactics.
In a sign of growing tensions over Miliband's plans to reform the historic link between Labour and the unions, the political director of the Unite union accused the shadow cabinet minister Michael Dugher of encouraging "lazy headlines" in the Tory press.
Jennie Formby wrote on the Central Lobby website: "His actions unpick the common agreement that divisive debates are unhelpful to the party. And … he is wrong, stupendously wrong."
Formby turned on Dugher after he told the House Magazine that Unite had become too political under the leadership of its general secretary, Len McCluskey, and did not campaign enough on bread-and-butter issues. Describing himself as a "humble" member of the union, he said: "I suspect a lot of union members, by the way, think there's too much politics. If you're at the car plant or if you're at aerospace or whatever, they would rather you talk about the work at BAE Systems in Brough and maybe less time talking about Cuba or Colombia or Nicaragua. They'd rather you were talking about Barnsley."
Dugher is unpopular among supporters of McCluskey because he was an aide to Sir Ken Jackson, the former general secretary of the AEEU (and then Amicus) trade union, who was described as one of Tony Blair's favourite trade union leaders. Unite was formed in 2007 when Amicus merged with the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU). McCluskey was a veteran TGWU member who supported Militant.
McCluskey's political director was scathing about Dugher. Formby wrote: "In claiming that our union members may consider Unite to be too political – straight from the Eric Pickles textbook where union membership should only be a workplace transaction – Dugher, those greedily sought rightwing headlines in the bag, exposed a seriously poor grasp of the drive, collectivism and democracy that serve our movement proudly. Let's say it again for it clearly needs it: the decision that unions would try to make life – and all aspects of life – better for their members was not taken one day by Len McCluskey."
Dugher tweeted that he had made clear in the interview that he cared passionately about the link between Labour and the unions. This was a reference to his remarks in the interview in which he said: "I care very passionately about the unions and the link with the unions, but they've got to come to a decision: are they prepared just to manage decline? When we were in government, the last 10 years could have been about the fact that we've had the biggest set of employment rights, trade union rights that any government has ever delivered in the whole of history."
A friend of Dugher said: "Michael made it clear in the interview he is a passionate and long-standing supporter of the unions. He is far too busy attacking the Tories to bother about silly and inaccurate personal attacks from junior officials at the union – a union that he was very proud to have worked for once."
