Sharon Graham is expected to move the union away from Westminster and back into workplaces
Unite officials had expected an easy win for an insider, Steve Turner, an assistant general secretary and, in the words of one observer, “the anointed one”. He has been a loyal deputy to Len McCluskey, the retiring general secretary, and he played a big part in shaping the government’s covid-19 furlough scheme. During the campaign Ms Graham faced abuse from activists who accused her of splitting the left, thus supposedly providing a route to victory for Gerard Coyne, the least radical candidate.
The fact that Unite members found her appealing is an indictment of Mr McCluskey’s tenure, during which the effort to propel Labour’s former, far-left leader, Jeremy Corbyn, towards Downing Street trumped everything else. Unite sank millions in members’ dues into this failed enterprise. It has cut the amount that will go to Mr Corbyn’s successor, the more centrist Sir Keir Starmer. Who leads Labour, and whether the party wins elections, matter little to many Unite members.
Membership continues to tilt away from the private sector towards the public sector, however. Last year 227,000 public-sector employees joined a union, and 110,000 private-sector ones left. This shift has caused something of an identity crisis. The highest-paid fifth of employees in the public sector are nearly seven times as likely to be in a union as the lowest-paid fifth in the private sector, says the Resolution Foundation.
She is also the chief cheerleader for “leverage”, a radical tactic that involves going over bosses’ heads to company directors, shareholders, investors and suppliers. After British Airways, the national flag-carrier, threatened to fire and rehire thousands of Unite members, she set upback to the negotiating table. To help settle a dispute at a bus company in England, she brought it to the attention of Sweden’s government, putting a potential contract there at risk.
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