Vote for campaigning, socialist candidates in the Unite Executive elections
Suzanne Muna, Unite EC member, personal capacity
Unite the Union’s Executive Council met in March during the week that marked exactly one year since the start of all-out action in the bitterly fought and ongoing Birmingham bin strike.
The strike was triggered when the council announced its intention to equalise bin workers’ pay downwards, following equal pay claims from women workers elsewhere in the council. This announcement ran completely contrary to the intention of the Equal Pay Act, which took effect at the end of 1975 and was self-evidently aimed at raising the pay of women, not reducing that of comparator colleagues.
If the proposal had been left unchallenged, it would have given a green light to other councils in particular and other employers in general, encouraging them to engage in a race to the bottom and render this key protective legislation impotent.
The dispute has also put the relationship with the Labour Party under renewed strain. The Unite policy conference in 2025 coincided with a threat by the Birmingham Labour council to fire the bin workers and rehire them on new pay rates, worth around £8,000 less in some cases.
It resulted in more than 800 conference delegates voting to suspend the Unite membership of then-Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner and the Birmingham Labour councillors in protest at the role they have played in the negotiations. Crucially, it also compelled the union to discuss its relationship with Labour. The vote was virtually unanimous, with only five delegates, mainly from the United Left group, abstaining. This sent a powerful message of support to the strikers, and an equally impactful warning shot across the bows of Labour.
Unite, like many other major trade unions, is affiliated to the Labour Party. This means that it makes payments to the party coffers, and it means that the union cannot support candidates in constitutional elections representing any other party – our choices are to support the Labour candidate or none.
As the anniversary of the Birmingham bin strike arrived, the Executive Council was asked to agree a proposal to reduce the amount paid by Unite in respect of affiliation. Unite pays over £1.4 million annually in affiliation fees alone (occasional discretionary payments are also made, for example during elections). This is more than any other union, and almost twice the amount that Unison pays, despite an equivalent number of members. To mark a year of indefinite strike action, the Executive agreed to reduce the fee payment by £580,000 to £900,000.
This action marks just one step in fulfilling the wishes of members in relation to the Labour Party, but the big test is yet to come. At recent Unite rules conferences, it is traditional for amendments calling on disaffiliation from Labour to feature on the agenda. Historically, none have gained sufficient support from delegates to pass, but last year’s policy conference was an accurate indication of the scale of disillusionment with Starmer’s Labour.
But the role of United Left at that conference shows what is at stake in the Unite Executive Council elections. Ballot papers go out on 23 March. Socialist Party members are standing on the left ‘Workers Unite – Back to the Workplace’ slate that supports Sharon Graham’s manifesto.
The newly elected Executive must have on its agenda the need to open up the much-needed discussion in the union on our relationship with Labour. The next scheduled conference is not for another sixteen months, but that is too long to wait. Better to set the timetable for a special rules conference to break the link with Starmer’s party and discuss building a real political alternative for workers.
Unite court fine ‘will come out of Labour fee’
Unite has responded to being fined £265,000 by the High Court, after Labour’s Birmingham City Council took out a legal injunction against the union during the long-running bin dispute, for what it claims are breaches of the injunction.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Unite will not allow these workers to pay the price for the council’s failings in their pay packets. Instead of using Thatcher’s anti-union laws to injunct the picket line and stop lawful protest, the council should honour the deal scoped out at Acas. They walked out of the room, said they would be back with the deal in writing, and never returned. Rather than resolving the dispute, Birmingham City Council’s own figures have confirmed they have spent £33 million of Birmingham residents’ money trying to break the strike. It won’t be broken – these workers are fighting for council workers everywhere”. “Every single penny” of this fine, says Sharon, “will come out of Labour’s affiliation fee”, the money the union pays to the Labour Party. But this provocative move by Starmer’s party shows the need to head off further attacks on the union’s finances by getting union candidates on the ballot paper at election time, starting this May.
The elections to Unite’s Executive Council are crucial: the industrial and political approach of the union is at stake, with its status as a militant union on the line.
Candidates to vote for to maintain and extend Sharon Graham’s manifesto include:
- Suzanne Muna – standing for re-election to the South West regional seat
- Len Hockey – London and Eastern
- Tanis Belsham-Wray – Community, Youth Workers and Not for Profit
- Dave Walsh – Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians
- John Williams – LGBT+
- And the candidates on the Workers Unite slate: backtotheworkplace.org/executive-council-candidates
The election runs 23 March to 27 April
