Workplaces

Left wing majority in UNISON NEC elections: now transform the union!

June 16, 2021

Socialist Alternative in UNISON
Rights and wages of Pizza Express workers sliced and burned

June 14, 2021

Daisy Bradford
Open letter to Unite the Union General Secretary candidates

May 14, 2021

Socialist Alternative
NEU exec elections – a moderate step forward for the grassroots left

Danni Crowter
National Education Union Executive elections – Socialist Alternative member Louise Lewis elected!

May 4, 2021

NEU members in Socialist Alternative
Mass sackings by British Gas – the fight against fire-and-rehire bullying must continue

April 16, 2021

A GMB union shop steward, London

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Left wing majority in UNISON NEC elections: now transform the union!

In a result which has bucked the current trend of elections in the trade unions, the left secured a victory in the UNISON national executive committee (NEC) elections by winning a majority for the first time. Despite UNISON being the largest union in the UK, organising workers in the NHS, local government and other public services, it has been led by the right wing for the last 20 years since its inception. Socialist Alternative supporters Jacqui Berry and Steve North were re-elected and Kevin Corran, NHS worker and standing for the first time in the national male health seat won an impressive 8100 votes but narrowly missed out on winning the seat.

The Covid pandemic and the role played by frontline workers have been features of this election. Enraged by the slap in the face from the government’s 1% pay offer for NHS workers, after Tory ministers joined the ‘clap for our carers’ last year, many health workers were participating in protests. However, UNISON did not support them. Instead, newly elected right-wing general secretary, Christine McAnea, immediately distanced herself from any protests and plans for strike action. Some health workers decided to leave UNISON and join the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) instead, who had set aside £38m in a strike fund and begun training their members in activism to prepare for the upcoming battle over the 1% pay offer.

This was part of the context for the success of the left in the NEC elections. The #TimeForRealChange slate got 37 of its 56 candidates elected. This was achieved by campaigning against the pay freeze, privatisation and cuts to public services. Along with other left wing candidates, it means there is an overall majority for the left on the 68-seat NEC. This victory now needs to be used to fundamentally transform UNISON into the democratic, fighting trade union that its members need.

Immediate tasks: challenge the power of the bureaucracy!

One of the most immediate tasks for the new NEC is to elect the union’s Presidential team (made up of one President and two Vice Presidents). In the past, the left have always put forward candidates for this election but have never been successful. With a majority it is now possible to elect a full left slate. These are obviously important positions for the left to win, not least because they decide who will sit on various committees within the union. These include Finance and Resources, Development & Organisation (which deals with disciplinaries), and Staffing committees. Winning left majorities on these committees will be vital in ensuring the right-wing bureaucracy is challenged and that the new left majority can take meaningful control of the union.

An important step will be discussion amongst the left on its democratic programme for the union. This should involve proposals for election of senior officials, Assistant General Secretaries and regional officials. The left-led NEC will be hamstrung in achieving what it wants to, in terms of policy and campaigning, unless it takes seriously the need to make fundamental changes to how the union is organised. For too long, the right-wing bureaucracy has been able to act as a brake on struggle, and it can’t be allowed to continue now! Full time officers have micromanaged every aspect of union organisation and must be edged aside so the rank and file can lead the union.

For a campaigning, member-led union

As well as needing fundamental internal transformation, UNISON now needs to turn outwards and become an active, campaigning union. The two are, of course, linked. UNISON has not been at the forefront of workers’ struggle, despite its size, primarily because the right-wing bureaucracy have been politically opposed to leading the type of fight-back necessary. Now, there is the opportunity to use the potential power of 1.3 million workers to win on pay, working conditions and kicking out privateers from our public services.

There should be immediate discussions with other public sector unions on the possibility for coordinated strike action on pay, as well as serious mobilisations of members for the People’s Assembly protest on 26 June and the NHS anniversary day of action on 3 July. These could act as a springboard for a well organised and sustained mass movement for a 15% pay rise, an increase in the minimum wage, an end to zero-hours contracts and more.

In relation to the Labour Party, there should be an election to choose a left-wing representative to the Labour NEC. However, it cannot be left here. Unite’s member on the Labour Party NEC, Howard Beckett, is currently suspended from Labour, along with many other left-wing activists. There can be no more blank cheques given to the Starmer’s Labour Party, which is no longer a vehicle of struggle, and there needs to be an urgent discussion on working class political representation in UNISON.

UNISON should also be properly involved in other struggles which are currently taking place, such as the Kill the Bill protests and the movement around climate change, until now led by young people without any meaningful support from the trade union movement. Mass protests around the COP26 in Glasgow in November should be a priority for UNISON to seriously mobilise for.

Mobilise the members, build a strong broad left

These changes should not, and cannot, be implemented by the NEC alone. The entrenched right-wing bureaucracy will not release its stranglehold of the union easily, and it will require the mobilisation of members in support of the new policies and approach of the NEC. UNISON’s bureaucracy has a disgusting historical record of witch-hunts against the left and a culture of bullying and intimidation inside the union. There needs to be a serious and conscious campaign to build a strong rank-and-file broad left organisation which can, on the one hand, support the NEC in pushing back against the bureaucracy and, on the other, hold the NEC to account to ensure the left candidates stand by their election pledges.

The #TimeForRealChange slate was successful, in part, because it represented a united front of left candidates. This lesson must be taken on board for how the left operates going forward, including learning from the general secretary election, where because there were three left candidates, the right wing candidate won. Those involved in this slate must now look to how they build a genuine broad left, based on the rank-and-file members and left-wing workplace representatives throughout the union, including the recruitment and training of new reps. A good step to work towards this could be the holding of a mass meeting of all those members and activists who wish to be involved to discuss what they can do. It will also need to include the NEC repealing the anti-member, restrictive election rules which in effect prevent any campaigning by organisations, including trends within the union.

Impact on the labour movement as a whole

The victory of the left in the UNISON NEC elections can be a turning point for the whole labour movement. The previous leadership has played an extremely negative role in the post-2008 period, leaving members defenseless in the face of an onslaught of austerity. UNISON led the way in 2011 – by selling out the public sector general strike against attacks on pensions, demoralising hundreds of thousands of its members. Now there is an opportunity for UNISON to lead the way in coordinating action and resistance across the trade union movement.

In recent weeks there has been the election of right wing general secretaries in the RMT and the GMB – not to mention the election earlier in the year of Christine McAnea in UNISON – but there are other trade unions with left leaders who the UNISON NEC could make appeals to, as well as the memberships of the other trade unions. Nominations have just closed for the general secretary candidates in Unite, revealing the potential danger once again of a split in the left vote. A victory for Gerard Coyne in Unite would represent a huge step back. But if a left candidate wins, having a left-led Unite and UNISON – representing over 2.3 million workers – would be a huge opportunity for a drastic change in the approach of the trade union movement in Britain.
If you agree, contact us and join the fight for a democratic UNISON with socialist policies – join Socialist Alternative today!
Rights and wages of Pizza Express workers sliced and burned

The head offices of international chain Pizza Express are guilty of decimating the wages and livelihoods of the waiters and chefs who work for them. The attacks come in many forms.

In 2020 Pizza Express fired 2,500 staff members (in the middle of a pandemic!) instead of granting them access to the Job Retention Scheme that has supported millions throughout the crisis. Now the company is attempting, with little success due to sector-wide labour shortages, to hire 1,000 new workers. These new employees will be expected to work more hours (the reduction from 2.5K to 1K workers is massive) on worse contracts (no sick pay, no paid breaks nor extra pay on Sundays/Bank Holidays) than the workers who preceded them.

The percentage of hard-earned tips going to waiting staff have been slashed from 80% to 50%, in order to subsidise kitchen staff wages. Both groups of staff urgently need a decent pay rise. For this to be real and secure it must be funded by the company itself and guaranteed for all workers. The current plan not only deprives the front-of-house staff of a much-needed portion of their already low income, it also keeps back-of-house staff on low wages with an insecure ‘top-up’ from tips.

Contract amendments mean that workers no longer receive paid breaks nor extra pay on Sundays and Bank holidays. Such changes chip away at an already pitiful wage and the stripping away of 50% of waiting staff tips compounds this hardship. One worker told The Guardian “When we signed the contract that was the understanding. We are not arguing that chefs and cleaners don’t contribute to service but we agreed to certain terms.” These sly amendments relate to the “fire and rehire” policies that are currently being resisted by workers in many different sectors, with the success of the #NoGo Bus driver strikes in Manchester an important recent victory.

This cynical move is aimed at breeding animosity between waiting staff and kitchen staff – keeping back and front-of-house staff divided and suspicious of each other. Employers purposefully generate and maintain such resentments to divide workers and therefore make them easier to exploit. Socialist Alternative fights for the cutting across of all divisions amongst the working class. When workers are united in struggle, we can win huge victories.

Workers were barely consulted about the changes to their contracts and tips, informed only 10 days before Pizza Express restaurants reopened. This allowed them little time to question and resist the amendments or to find work elsewhere.

Another shady aspect is that Pizza Express staff who manage the tips, or “tronc”, are not chosen by other workers, nor are there clear mechanisms by which they can be held accountable by other members of staff. Moreover, staff had no access to the minutes of meetings determining new proposals for tip distribution. Why are the head office unable to share this information? Witnessing this unethical opacity can have a big impact. We as workers, in our millions, must not tolerate these policies. Within the failed system of “trickle-down economics”, all that flows down is exploitation.

Where are the unions amidst all of this chaos?

Unite the Union has spent six years calling on the government to “deliver on its 2019 Queen’s Speech commitment and bring in its promised Fair Tips legislation.” Over the last few years we have seen how the Tory government has no intention of delivering on this promise. Unite and all other trade unions must help organise their members and support them to resist and where necessary strike to demand an end to these abuses.

Unite, and all other other unions, must focus on building a campaign at the grassroots, based on the workers who joined them.

After decades of Tory anti-Trade Union laws, union membership in sectors such as hospitality has been on the decrease. Such legislation has given some unions an excuse to be more timid. Trade union leaderships need to work harder at mobilising the power and strength of the workers who chose them as representatives. Through struggle, workers gain confidence and camaraderie with their fellow workers. When the working class is united, real change can begin.

Socialist Alternative organises to help build fighting unions with leaderships who are willing to struggle to the end. We need working-class fighters to lead the unions, willing to openly resist the capitalist class.

If workers did not share potentially huge collective power – the hidden seeds of revolution – then why would the ruling class do everything in their power to keep us divided and depressed? Workers have incredible potential power when we come together in a united cause.

Socialist Alternative fight for:
- £15 an hour minimum wage for all
- 100% of tips to go to hospitality workers themselves
- For decent pay rises to reflect the real cost of living for all staff (back and front of house), funded directly by the company and not based on tips
- Fully paid sick leave, pensions and holiday pay for all
- The scrapping of anti-trade union laws that limit workers rights, to enable all workers to organise and resist
- Fully democratic election of all trade union officials on an average wage
- The election of true working-class fighters as trade union reps, unafraid to go on the offensive against the elites
Open letter to Unite the Union General Secretary candidates

To the candidates standing in the Unite General Secretary election:

This year’s Unite General Secretary election comes at a pivotal moment for the union and the working class as whole. The vital question members are dealing with is how does the union face up to the challenges posed by Covid-19 and the resultant economic and social crisis?

We have already seen the bosses using the pandemic as a cover for further attacks on workers’ pay and conditions. Unite members have been engaged in battles against scandalous fire and rehire tactics, in the case of Go Ahead in Manchester successfully. In retail and hospitality, a jobs cull is taking place as big business attempts to claw back some of the profits lost as a result of repeated lockdowns. Public sector workers have found themselves on the receiving end of yet another pay cut.

To compound matters, since his election as Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer has rapidly dragged the party to the right, meaning that Unite is funding an organisation which is not a vehicle for struggle. Throughout the pandemic he has more often than not simply acted as a faint echo of Johnson, turning to patriotic flag waving rather than campaigning for policies which would improve the lives of the working class. This has gone in tandem with a remorseless assault on the left, including the removal of the whip from Jeremy Corbyn. The fruits of his approach were seen with the recent local and devolved government elections.

When members cast their vote in this election we need to ensure we do so for the candidate that gives us the best chance of organising industrial and political opposition to the Covid onslaught.

What is needed to take the union forward? To the workplace…and beyond!

Outgoing general secretary Len McCluskey’s election represented a big step forward for the union. Under his leadership the union has not blocked workers from taking action where they choose to do so, in contrast to the leaders of some of the other big unions. During this time members have also been able to win a number of important victories. There must be no retreat from this position. The gains that Unite members have made during McCluskey’s tenure must be built upon.

While branches have been able to organise fantastic campaigns and struggles they play very little role at national level. For example, delegates to the Policies and Rules conferences are not elected by the branches but by Regional Industrial Sector Committees. At the present time many of these are moribund and rarely meet, placing a lot of influence and power into the hands of the officials who work for the union. To effectively hold the union’s leadership to account it is clear that the union’s structures must change to empower the branches.

To build a strong democratic union, it will need more than a reallocation of resources and Unite must take a turn to organising in the workplaces and strong workplace rep structures as well as holding elections of regional and national officials and negotiating officers. All elected officials and full time officers must receive the average industrial wage and branches should elect delegates to conferences. It is in this way that we hold the union leadership accountable and really bring the union back to the workplace.

The question of political representation for the working class will be a key issue in this election. It is to his credit that McCluskey was one of Corbyn’s biggest defenders in the teeth of right-wing opposition. However this did not go far enough in terms of making fundamental change in the Labour Party, such as mandatory resection of MPs which would have allowed the left and the movement around Corbyn to solidify its position.

There was also unfortunately a passive approach of sitting it out and waiting for a Corbyn government. Unite could have been at the forefront of mobilising a mass working class movement which could have brought down the Tory government and elected a Labour government on anti-austerity and left wing policies.

With Starmer as leader, it will require more than just being more critical of the attacks on the left within Labour or cutting some of the funding to the party. There should be no more blank cheques given to the Labour politicians who are not standing on the side of the working class. Unite should only back candidates who back our members.

However, it would also be a huge mistake to conclude that we should adopt an apolitical approach to trade unionism. Unite should not limit itself to the workplace, it must go beyond. We can also play a role in developing a political voice for emerging social movements such as Black Lives Matter, combating gendered violence and climate catastrophe. It is in this way Unite can play a role in developing a new left political voice for working class people, based on struggle.

The need for a strong left

A victory for Gerard Coyne – the candidate representing the right wing of the union – at this election would represent a big setback for Unite members. The six pledges in his manifesto make no mention of how workers can effectively organise to take on the bosses. Instead he promises to ‘modernise’ the union, make it ‘a world leading digital union’ and for 24/7 online and phone support service.

This all amounts to the failed service model of trade unionism. The fact that Coyne came so close to winning in 2017, on a turnout of just 12%, is itself a glimpse of some of the problems facing the left in the union. More needs to be done to engage members at rank and file level in the union’s structures. A strong broad left needs to be built amongst the rank and file, with a focus on campaigning as well as standing in elections and winning positions.

The left within the union is currently unfortunately split over which candidate to support. We are writing to those seeking nominations at this stage to ask what your position is on the following questions. We see these as being the vital issues which will determine whether the left can field the strongest candidate possible in this election and if they win, to ensure that we have a democratic, fighting union capable of representing us in the stormy period ahead.

Questions

1. How would you seek to tackle the anti-union laws? Would you insist on the Labour Party pledging to repeal and vote for this at all Labour Party forums? Do you pledge never to repudiate strike action?

2. Almost one third of Unite’s branches are not functioning properly. How would you strengthen support to the workplace branches of Unite, which ought to be the bedrock of our union’s internal life? Would you help make us industrially effective by supporting national combines for large employers?

3. The issue of working class political representation is a key question for the trade union movement. What do you think Unite’s relationship with the Labour Party should be? Will you support holding discussions within the union on whether we need a new party of struggle for the working class? Do you support the building of socialist and anti-sectarian political representation for the working class in Ireland, North and South?

4. Almost one in ten workers have faced attacks on their terms and conditions since the first lockdown in March last year, including through ‘fire and rehire’ schemes. In this context, would you develop and support coordinated industrial action across and within sectors within our union?

5. The majority of young workers – the future of our movement – are in precarious and largely unorganised sectors, such as hospitality and other services. How do you propose to overcome the barriers to organising in these sectors and make unions more relevant to young workers?

6. How would you develop a concrete programme of action as well as policy to defend manufacturing? Do you support a socialist Green New Deal – based on public investment and democratic public ownership of key sectors – as part of rebuilding modern manufacturing?

7. How would you mobilise our union’s strength in opposition to racism, sectarianism and other forms of bigotry? How would you address the issue of sexual harassment and gender violence in the workplace, which reflects misogyny in society as a whole?

We look forward to your reply.

In solidarity,

International Socialist Alternative activists in Unite

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