Huge membership fall since last official figure in late 2020, say insiders – but management hasn’t reported official membership despite requirement to do so every year – and continues to donate millions to anti-worker Labour party
Yesterday, Skwawkbox reported the collapse in the Unite union’s strike fund – the fund members rely on to pay their bills and feed their families when they are on strike – from £35m when current general secretary Sharon Graham took office to just £11m now. Some insiders say the fund was increased to £50m just before previous general secretary Len McCluskey retired, though Skwawkbox has not yet been able to confirm this.
£11m is only enough for about eight months, based on spending in each of the last two years.
Senior union figures have also complained that the union management is not being transparent about the union’s membership and has not signed off financial accounts since Ms Graham took over in 2021 Unions are required to report membership annually, but Unite has not done so – and risks severe sanction from the Certification Officer. One senior official of another union told Skwawkbox:
Unions have to declare membership every year to the Certification Officer. Unite doesn’t appear to have done so for several years and the CO could effectively decide to shut them down if she chooses.
But well-placed Unite insiders have now told Skwawkbox that the latest internal estimates show a catastrophic fall. Unite’s membership in late 2020, the last official figure, was 1.081m:
- Automotive Industries 72,453
- Aerospace & Shipbuilding 63,238
- Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, Process and Textiles 43,134
- Civil Air Transport 65,892
- Community Youth workers and not for profit 42,985
- Docks, Rail, Ferries & Waterways 17,228
- Education 17,335
- Energy and Utilities 32,485
- Engineering, Manufacturing and Steel 57,753
- Finance and Legal 61,559
- Food Drink and Agriculture63,589
- Government, Defence, Prisons & Contractors 10,751
- Graphical Paper and Media & Information Technology 36,810
- Health 88,770 Local Authorities 61,783
- Passenger Transport 76,861
- Road Transport Commercial, Logistics and Retail Distribution 62,619
- Service Industries 50,564
- Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians 68,083
- Community 14,971
- Unknown 6,668
- Retired 65,503
Total 1,081,034
According to internal estimates, it is now around 870,000 – a fall of a fifth (19.5%) from the 2020 figure Graham inherited – and is still falling. By a different measurement, sources say that the 2020 figure was 1.28m, which would mean a fall of almost 400,000 in two and a half years.
Against that backdrop, according to the Electoral Commission the union under Graham has donated around £4m since the winter of 2021 to Keir Starmer’s Labour, despite Starmer’s assault on democracy, betrayal of and contempt for striking workers, blocking of union candidates in parliamentary seats and his support for ‘spycops’ and anti-protest laws.
Sharon Graham’s failure to speak out on Gaza and behind the scenes attempts to quell free speech on the issue since Israel’s genocide there began last October has outraged many members and others. She
Graham has been publicly silent about the slaughter, but has:
- been criticised for banning Unite officials and national banners from pro-Gaza protests
- banned and smeared films and books exposing the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam, placed an official under investigation who refused to cancel a Palestine solidarity fringe event at Labour’s 2023 annual conference
- allegedly told her chief of staff to threaten a soon-to-retire official with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians
Her supporters also prevented debate and votes on Gaza at last week’s meeting of the union’s elected executive.
Ms Graham’s tenure as Unite boss has also been marked by a string of other allegations – which neither she nor the union has denied – including alleged destruction of evidence against her husband in threat, misogyny and bullying complaints brought by union employees. She is also embroiled in both an employment tribunal for discrimination and a defamation lawsuit brought by Irish union legend Brendan Ogle for the union’s treatment of him and comments made about him by Graham and her close ally Tony Woodhouse – a situation that has caused outrage among Unite members and politicians in Ireland.
Unite has been contacted for comment.
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Skwawkie, why not ask the Morning Star why they haven’t covered this and all the other scandals of Graham’s tenure? And about the suspect nature of the paper’s unstinting support for her? And, for the love of God, can’t somebody find a picture of her that wouldn’t crack mirrors?!!
Chako is a Grahamist to the core. The Star has dropped off the cliff. Our local tenants and OAP groups now buy one and share it around- should he ever be asked. What daily do we read? None. Its down to Skwawky, IE etc. Keep it up Steve, Damo, NTAMS etc. I used to watch UKColumn. It had good contributions and some excellent presenters but its changed. A/S hangs heavily and widely.
‘They’re killing Palestinians.
And bombing children to make you cry.
But the workerists in a major union.
Prefer to walk on by?’
Graham has done a Starmer on UNITE. Shame on her, and not one word to condemn the Gaza Genocide has she uttered.
Democracy is the least worst option, when it can be ignored by a kitchen cabinet, when the manifesto is not worth the paper it’s written on and your representatives are working for another country and other vested interests
All roads must lead to a hung parliament, then PR then sanctions on those who corrupt our Democracy
Unforgivable!
It is possible this might actually be a tactic? Neoliberals don’t have much of a genuine sociological base and are soon found out. So, whenever the entryists penetrate and existing organisation they tend to practice the voter suppression tactics advocated by the Republican Paul Weyrich
“I don’t want everybody to vote… our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”
This way they can steal elections and exert influence far greater than the reality of their numbers. Starmer, Brown and Blair all had catastrophic effects on membership and voter turnout. It hasn’t ever bothered them. So, this anti-democratic dynamic might be part of Graham’s game too?
Speaking of anti-democratic stitch-ups, Marr at the New Statesman reported that Starmer has put together a team of unelected people to work around him including members of the Tony Blair Instittute. Marr actually characterised this as progress, instead of the anti-democractic circumvention of Starmer’s responsibilities to CLPs and conference.
There again Marr characterised Blair ‘shock & awe’ killing of Iraqi civilians as ‘a vindication’.
Bernie – Corbyn also surrounded himself with an unelected team?
Not only has Starmer has gathered together the unelected but some of them have blood their hands from their participation in the Blair regime – a regime that also was responsible for torture.
Mind you some people are so racist as to not classify New Labour’s victims as even members of the human race.
Bernie – You are sounding increasingly desperate.😧
Bernie – Given the very low turnout for the election of Unite’s leader one would have expected that this would have been an easy win for the left.
What happened, why did the left fail to get their vote out or did they simply not have the numbers to make any real difference to the outcome?🤔
Unite has supported the wing of the Labour party who see’s unions as a temporary cash cow, until big business takes over.
Worrying piece by Neo-Liberal capitalist Groveller Mandelson (in Sunday Times, 24/3/24) he refers to the Lightweight Reeves recent economic speech (Motherhood & Apple Pie) and with new union rights he wants Right Wing Labour to consult business on these “And take them to the centre.” The extreme centre (Ali.T.)who promote Cheap Labour & vote to bomb & invade other countries? Unions who fund Lab are being sold down the river early? Vote Left Independent or as a last resort Green.
Bazza
The Greens as a last resort, that boat has sailed, they have been captured as well, gone completely mad mental, think Putin is to blame for Ukraine, unrecognisable in Germany
Let the Independents who are established in their areas stand on same 5 core issues to allow the coordination of each campaign
Some Greens, Lib Dums could sign up where there is no alternative
Talking of the Green Party, check out the following article posted on Counterpunch a couple of days ago:
‘CO2 Bursting into the Atmosphere’
According to climate scientists, we’re fast approaching white-knuckle time. This reinforces the outlook for 2024 as expressed by WMO: “Every major global climate record was broken last year and 2024 could be worse.” (Celeste Saulo, secretary-general, World Meteorological Organization)
Making matters more nerve-wracking yet, Carbon dioxide, CO2, in the atmosphere is setting new all-time records, soaring above expectations and well above previous readings at Mauna Lua Observatory, Hawaii:
March 18, 2024, CO2 measured 426.02 ppm.
March 15, 2023. CO2 measured 420.24 ppm.
That’s +5.78 ppm in only one year. An increase of this magnitude has not been seen before. On a seasonal basis, the month of May is ordinarily the peak reading for the year. That’s still weeks away…..
Meanwhile, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) confirmed that February 2023 to January 2024 saw warming of 1.52 degrees Celsius above the 19th century benchmark.
It’s almost impossible to grasp the damage happening to world ecosystems because it happens on the fringe of civil society, such as Siberian and Alaskan permafrost leaking methane, Antarctica ice shelves deteriorating, Greenland rain at its summit for the first time ever as the entire ice structure goes off the charts with a summertime melt rate increasing from 30,000,000 tons per day to 720,000,000 tons per day in the time span of only one year. Honestly, this is beyond words!
A few years ago, not that far back in time, people would have freaked out over the threats currently wrought by global warming, but as time passes, people get accustomed to hearing about disaster scenarios like a Hollywood film, but on TV in the comfort of their homes, and they shrug and move on with life as long as it’s not in their neighborhood.
Elsewhere, beyond the weird noises of nature heard in the Amazon rainforest, in everyday life people wake up every morning in cities like LA and NYC and Atlanta and Dallas, London, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro (record heat 62.3°C or 144.14°F on March 18th), and they go about daily routines, the same ole, same ole, hop into a new EV, motor the freeway to an underground parking garage, up an elevator 20 floors to air-conditioned offices for 8 hours and then reverse the process. These people do not live where climate change damages ecosystems.
Urban ecosystems mainly consist of concrete, asphalt, glass, steel, some wood, chemical-laden textiles, and a sprinkling of flora. What’s to harm? Urban residents are missing, and ignorant of, the deterioration of the planet’s most important ecosystems that sustain life, period! This is called “recognition deficit” and down the road the consequences will be deadly.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/03/22/co2-bursting-into-the-atmosphere/
Please check out the whole article, and share far and wide. Thanks
And there was also this, from five days ago:
‘Politicians Ignore Reality as the World Burns Around Them’
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/03/19/politicians-ignore-reality-as-the-world-burns-around-them/
And this, from a couple of days ago:
‘Can We Awaken Enough To Avoid Extinction?’
Amidst all the hype about the illegality of Russia’s re-annexation of Crimea and its illegal war nothing is said about the historical fact that for centuries European nations have been warring and seizing each other’s territories. In contravention of the United Nations the U.S. jumped into the act when it supported the breakup of Yugoslavia and later the secession of Kosovo which had been part of Serbia for 700 years. Well before the coup that overthrew the elected pro-Russian government in 2014 Washington had been arming and training the Ukrainian military with “the goal to produce NATO level military interoperability ” (Benjamin Abelow, How the West Brought War To Ukraine).
In all the hysterical dissimulation over Darth Putin’s malevolence and dire threat to western civilization a central historical fact has been disappeared: the last time Russian forces were in western Europe, with the exception of East Germany in 1945 for obvious reasons, was in 1814 after Napoleon’s equivalently illicit invasion when they drove the French dictator to defeat and briefly entered Paris, then to return to Mother Russia. Since then Russia has been invaded twice from the west with millions of casualties and consequences. If Americans could imagine such a bloodbath on American soil we might be able to see why Russia has set its “red line” on NATO and Ukraine. Under no circumstances would the U.S. allow foreign forces in the Western hemisphere. The near extinction events of 1962 demonstrate that.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/03/22/can-we-awaken-enough-to-avoid-extinction/
Napoleon used Polish mercs as well. Horsemeat anyone?
timfrom – Perhaps they like the way she has concentrated on representing and improving the lot of Unite’s membership. It was the platform that she was elected on.
“Unite has led up to 1,100 disputes since Sharon Graham was elected in the summer of 2021, 80% of them successful.”
Didn’t stop them smashing the pipes.
The algorithms have gone mad. I blame Putin, Hamas and immigrants living in t’Hilton.
” Russia’s war on Ukraine is estimated to have contributed 150 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent as of September 2023 — inflicting $9.6 billion in global climate damages.
https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/content/news/law-shapes-us-ticking-fossil-bomb-examining-ramifications-russian-war-ukraine-climate
‼️BREAKING NEWS – GAZA – UN SECURITY COUNCIL VOTES FOR AN IMMEDIATE CEASE-FIRE‼️
The UN security council voted to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for the first time since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, after the US dropped a threat to veto, in a significant break with the Israeli government.
The US abstained in a vote for a resolution that “demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan”. It also demanded the release of hostages by Hamas, but did not make the ceasefire dependent on hostage release, a linkage the US had previously insisted on.
All other 14 members of the security council voted in favour of the resolution, which was put forward by the 10 elected members, who managed to break a deadlock of more than five months of bloodshed, during which the US on one side and Russia and China on the other, had cast opposing vetoes.
After the vote, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, cancelled a visit to Washington DC by an Israeli delegation set for early this week, according to Israel’s Channel 12 television. The delegation was due to discuss a planned Israeli offensive on the city of Rafah in Gaza, something the Biden administration opposed.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/25/un-gaza-ceasefire-vote
The UN Security Council on Monday passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan, the immediate and unconditional release of hostages and “the urgent need to expand the flow” of aid into Gaza. There were 14 votes in favour with the United States abstaining. Follow live coverage here.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147931
Wonder if bidet will take any notice.
alex – Well given that the US didn’t veto it and that Netanyahu has had a tantrum and thrown his toys out of his pram the answer to that is fairly obvious.
“After the vote, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, cancelled a visit to Washington DC by an Israeli delegation set for early this week, according to Israel’s Channel 12 television. The delegation was due to discuss a planned Israeli offensive on the city of Rafah in Gaza, something the Biden administration opposed.”
SteveH , I missed that info. Thank you. Heaven only knows how he will react. His face tells us a lot and its nothing pleasant. I fear for the kiddies, mums everyone who goes to sleep for the last time. Does evil have limits?
alex – You might find this very recently released UN report informative
If you scroll down you’ll find the full pdf of the report
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/anatomy-of-a-genocide-report-of-the-special-rapporteur-on-the-situation-of-human-rights-in-the-palestinian-territory-occupied-since-1967-to-human-rights-council-advance-unedited-version-a-hrc-55/
Here are the reports comprehensive recommendations:
97. The Special Rapporteur recommends that member states:
(a) Immediately implement an arms embargo on Israel, as it appears to have failed to comply with the binding measures ordered by the ICJ on 26 January 2024, as well as other economic and political measures necessary to ensure an immediate and lasting ceasefire and to restore respect for international law, including sanctions;
(b) Support South Africa having resort to the UNSC under article 94(2) of the UN Charter following Israel’s non-compliance with the above-mentioned ICJ
measures;
(c) Act to ensure a thorough, independent and transparent investigation of all violations of international law committed by all actors, including those amounting to war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide, including:
(i) cooperating with international independent fact-finding/ investigative and accountability mechanisms;
(ii) referring the situation in Palestine to the ICC immediately, in support of its ongoing investigation;
(iii) discharging their obligations under the principles of universal jurisdiction, ensuring genuine investigations and prosecutions of individuals who are suspected of having committed, or aided or abetted, in the commission of international crimes, including genocide, starting with their own nationals;
(d) Ensure that Israel, as well as States who have been complicit in the Gaza genocide, acknowledge the colossal harm done, commit to non-repetition, with measures for prevention, full reparations, including the full cost of the reconstruction of Gaza, for which the establishment of a register of damage with an accompanying verification and mass claims process is recommended;
(e) Within the General Assembly, develop a plan to end the unlawful and unsustainable status quo constituting the root cause of the latest escalation, which ultimately culminated in the Gaza genocide, including through the reconstitution of the UN Special Committee against Apartheid to comprehensively address the situation in Palestine, and stand ready to implement diplomatic, economic and political measures provided under the United Nations Charter in case of non-compliance by Israel;
(f) In the short term and as a temporary measure, in consultation with the State of Palestine, deploy an international protective presence to constrain the violence routinely used against Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory;
(g) Ensure that UNRWA is properly funded to enable it to meet the increased needs of Palestinians in Gaza.
98. The Special Rapporteur calls on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to enhance its efforts to end the current atrocities in Gaza, including by promoting and accurately applying International Law, notably the Genocide Convention, in the context of the oPt as a whole