Miners’ Gala invites ‘union-buster’ as headline speaker who admitted destroying workers’ evidence vs husband

Sharon Graham accused of trying to break union staff strike and attacking anti-genocide solidarity but still speaking at the Big Meeting

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has been named by the Durham Miners’ Gala as a main speaker, despite allegations of ‘union-busting’ conduct toward striking union staff to protect her husband Jack Clarke from industrial action over his behaviour toward staff in the department he has run since she became general secretary – and her lawyers’ admission that the union destroyed staff’s evidence against him, including recordings of his treatment of female staff, in an earlier complaint against him.

Graham set up the ‘Bargaining and Disputes Support Unit’ (BDSU) when she took over Unite; Clarke was appointed to run it despite being on a final warning from the union over his conduct. In the earlier complaint, women working under him recorded him and submitted the evidence to the union but the recordings, and transcripts of their contents, were destroyed. Graham had asked colleagues to destroy the evidence against him.

BDSU workers now 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 from organising collectively.

More than 9/10 workers at Unite’s Holborn HQ voted in favour of strike action last December over the Clarke issue.

Graham has also been heavily criticised for her alleged refusal to implement the union’s position, democratically agreed by delegates, to support the people of Palestine against Israel’s apartheid and genocide – instead appearing to insist that she will prioritise arms industry jobs over calls to stand against the genocide and being accused of attacking even the basis of international solidarity. She has also claimed that leaked financials showing the union in a dire financial position are ‘fake’, even though they bore marks of coming from Unite’s internal ‘Sharepoint’ system. Unite has not filed annual accounts since she became general secretary.

Graham has been alleged by Unite insiders to have:

• banned 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
• 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

Skwawkbox wrote to the Miners’ Gala organisers to ask for comment on Graham’s inclusion given her admitted record and the allegations against her. No reply was provided.

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