Exclusive: majority of Unite union’s elected exec calls for special meeting to remove pro-Graham chair

Chair whose actions led to walk-out by key exec committee last year faces ousting

The Unite union’s elected executive must meet within the next two days for a vote to remove its chair – a supporter of general secretary Sharon Graham whose alleged anti-democratic conduct caused a major incident last year – after a majority of the ‘exec’ signed a demand for an emergency special meeting on Friday.

An email to the chair, signed by more than thirty exec members, tells him that they are calling a Special Executive Council Meeting, under Unite’s rule 14.3, that must be held within two days from Friday, and that the only business of the meeting is a rule 14.7 vote to remove him from his position.

The chair, who became an ally of Graham after being originally elected to the exec and as chair on the left-wing change slate, is the same chair whose alleged conduct on behalf of Graham led to a walk-out last May of the entire Unite F&GP committee, whose members made the following statement about the reasons for their walk-out:

Today the members of the Unite Finance and General Purposes Committee (F&GPC), the most important committee of the Unite Executive Council, took the unprecedented step of walking out of the meeting and will be commencing legal action with the Certification Officer.

As members of the F&GPC we have not taken this decision lightly, but we are determined not to let our union’s democracy be subverted by a Chair who has lost the confidence of the committee and a General Secretary who is determined to stifle democratic decision making.

The background to this decision is the refusal of the Chair and General Secretary to allow representatives of Unite’s Officers committee to address the meeting and explain why they are on the verge of balloting for industrial action.

At the previous meeting the members of the F&GPC were told by Unite Executive Head of Operations, Sarah Carpenter, that there was no unrest at all with the officers and no issues to be addressed.

But this flies totally in the face of the letter that all F&GPC members received this week in which the Officers National Committee asked to urgently meet and address the F&GPC, in order to discuss matters with a view to resolving major problems before moving towards industrial action.

Under rule, the ultimate employer of Unite officers and staff is the Unite Executive Council, and as members of the key subcommittee of the Executive Council, we take that responsibility very seriously. The idea that officers of Unite are so angry and frustrated as to want to take industrial action is totally unprecedented and is a situation that warrants immediate attention.

For the Chair and General Secretary to use every possible bureaucratic means to prevent that discussion is an insult to the F&GPC, an insult to the wider Executive Council, and most of all an insult to our members who need their officers motivated and working hard to protect their jobs, pay and conditions.

Our decision comes on the back of months of the F&GPC’s growing concern about poor management of the organisation and deep concern about financial reporting and accountability. We also thoroughly object to the General Secretary using threats against members of the wider EC when raising and challenging her handling of our money.

As members of the Unite F&GPC we will not stand idly by and allow the Chair and General Secretary to destroy our great union. We will be considering commencing legal action with the Certification Officer before any more damage is done and will be calling on the Unite EC and all Unite members and activists to help restore the democratic control and accountability of our union.

The same chair was also responsible, last March, for ruling out members’ motions – backed by Graham’s other supporters on the exec – on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, on the supposed grounds that supporting Palestinians is not part of the union’s service to its members. He also blocked discussions of Gaza at the preceding exec meeting.

For her part, Sharon Graham has:

• been criticised for banning Unite officials and national banners from pro-Gaza protests
• said she will prioritise arms industry jobs over preventing genocide
• 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
• suspended Unite’s affiliation to Stop the War over the group’s anti-genocide activism

An email from her official union address to an angry member also dismissed the genocide perpetrated on the civilians of Gaza.

On the industrial front, Unite is embroiled in a dispute by staff working in the department she created for her husband to run, who allege that he and managers working under him have bullied and abused staff. At least three and by some reports four of the five women working in the department have quit and Graham and her team have been accused by furious workers of employing union-busting tactics to break up the strike, including having allies join the GMB union that represents staff working for Unite to try to vote down the strike action, an allegation that the union’s sector committee has demanded be investigated. Unite’s officers have also accused her of using anti-union legislation to stop them organising collectively.

In a stunning development exclusively revealed by Skwawkbox, lawyers acting for Unite and Graham also confirmed Skwawkbox’s reporting that the union had destroyed evidence gathered by staff, particularly women, who had recorded the behaviour her husband, Jack Clarke, in their complaint that he was behaving abusively and misogynistically.

Clarke was appointed to his current role, after Graham became general secretary, despite being on a final warning from the union for his behaviour. The industrial action continues and threatens to spread to the whole HQ staff after more than 9/10 workers there voted in favour of strike action over the issue.

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