Unite HQ puts up banners against workers who are in dispute against Sharon Graham’s husband

Union puts up banners and pins its colours to anti-worker protest as members react in disgust

The Unite union has been condemned by workers and their union representatives for its attack on staff who complained about bullying in the unit run by Unite general secretary Sharon Graham’s husband, Jack Clarke – who was on a final warning for bullying and misogyny, including incidents recorded and transcribed by victims, before he was promoted to run it, outside the union’s usual procedures, soon after she became general secretary.

The union suspended workers who lodged the dispute – but not Clarke or other managers alleged to be bullying workers – and yesterday senior union management figures staged a counter-demonstration against the striking workers picketing outside Unite’s Holborn HQ.

And the banners that the protest used to attack the striking Unite staff have now been put up on the Unite HQ building, apparently making it very clear that the union stands behind the anti-worker manoeuvres:

The union’s campaign against workers has disgusted many members and activists. Organiser Reuben Bard-Rosenberg posted angrily on his social media about the tactics and the feeling they have created even among previously supportive organisers:

As well as the controversy over the appointment of her husband to a senior position despite his disciplinary record for bullying, Sharon Graham’s Unite is the subject of legal action – by a member of the union’s executive – for breaking union rules to appoint an ally as her chief of staff without ratification by elected executive members.

In 2022, Unite dismissed complaints of racism against Tony Seaman, a senior ally of Ms Graham, despite agreeing that his social media posts that led to complaints had been racist. Seaman was the ‘project-specific convenor’ on the union’s Birmingham conference centre project. Graham campaigned to become Unite general secretary on a platform of ‘cleaning up’ alleged corruption in the project, but a lengthy police investigation is believed to have found no wrongdoing.

Her tenure as Unite boss has also been marked by a string of other serious allegations, some of them relating to her husband, which neither she nor the union has ever denied:

• that she attempted to have evidence destroyed in bullying and misogyny complaints about her husband
• that after her supporters failed in their bid to take control of the Unite executive despite ‘dark money’ spending on advertising, ineligible and racist members being allowed to stand and the alleged use of paid organisers in and following the exec election campaign, her faction has resorted to Starmerite tactics to try to discredit the executive members, including misogyny and homophobia smears in an echo of the banners now up in Holborn
• that her chief of staff – the same who is the subject of the legal action – threatened a (now-retired) senior officer with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians against Israel’s genocide

In addition, Graham has been exposed behind the union’s decision to ban showings in Unite’s buildings of a film exposing racism, smears, rigging and abuse by the Labour right and has appeared to grow increasingly cosy with red-Tory Labour ‘leader’ Keir Starmer, despite Starmer’s lies, his contempt for democracy, his u-turns on promises to Unite members and his regime’s repeated blocking of Unite-backed parliamentary candidates.

Unite has been contacted for comment.

Update: the banners were taken down, apparently shortly after Skwawkbox’s press enquiry.

SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount as it has to be entered by us). Alternatively, if you prefer to make a one-off or recurring donation by simple card payment, please use the form below:

Thanks for your solidarity so Skwawkbox can keep doing its job of inconveniencing the right and helping to build the left!

If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.