By Moria McKim, submitted by mike92 on Thu, 03/07/2008 - 12:07
Fear and Loathing on the Conference Trail
What’s the difference between Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF Party and the leadership of the public service union Unison? Not as much as you might imagine, judging by recent events, as Moira McKim reports
A WHILE BACK I reported on the case of Unison shop steward Eddie Murray who, with an eleven-years unblemished work record at Edinburgh College of Art, suddenly found himself suspended half way through his annual leave and was sacked just before Christmas 2007 while Unison’s City Branch ignored his requests for help - and may indeed have actively colluded with the college’s notoriously ruthless senior management in having him dismissed. Murray had played a leading role in fighting the so-called ‘modernisation’ process. By organising an online referendum of its members at the college he foiled Unison’s plan to hold a postal ballot when many of those members would be away on annual leave, and those with term-time contracts also absent. The ballot – which was initially to contain a voting recommendation from Unison, undoubtedly Yes - was then postponed until all members were back at work in October. The postal vote was called off because of the postal workers’ strike. and the result of an in-college secret ballot was a resounding No! to the employer’s proposals. The ballot papers were then collected by John Ross, services convenor of the union’s City of Edinburgh Branch, and promptly vanished, never to be heard of again. Murray was subsequently sacked for ‘gross misconduct’ for ‘misusing the college email system’ while Unison’s John Mulgrew determinedly ignored his requests for representation, and failed to turn up at his disciplinary hearing.
At the time it seemed like a bizarre and isolated incident, a little local difficulty between a workplace organiser and corrupt union full-timers more interested in implementing New Labour policy than defending the pay and conditions of their members. But a much fuller picture has since emerged, a picture of abject control freakery as Unison’s hierarchy sells out union democracy in order to serve their New Labour masters, and Murray’s case is now looking like part of an ongoing process, a witch-hunt of members who oppose the union’s implementation of New Labour economic policies in the workplace.
The Bigger Picture
‘It never crossed my mind that my sacking was part of an ongoing witch-hunt,’ says Murray who emphasises that he was never ‘a Unison activist.’ In his eleven years in the union he never even attended a City Branch meeting. ‘I was simply a workplace shop steward,’ he says. ‘I’ve never even met the branch officers who helped to get me sacked. It was only when someone sent me a copy of Indymedia Scotland that I started to think. It had a short version of your article – and another about a Unison member in Plymouth who was hunted out of the union. That struck me, and I started looking into things.’
He is referring to Indymedia Scotland’s free hard copy newspaper. The first edition was produced in February 2008 and contained both a précis of my original article and a report from Bristol Indymedia about Plymouth Unison branch officer Tony Staunton. Staunton, a trade union and political activist for nearly thirty years, was very popular among wide layers of the local trade union movement. In 2006 the Plymouth branch office was suddenly raided by Unison regional officials and computers searched for any reference to left wing parties. A downloaded leaflet for a Socialist Workers Party public meeting and the banner from the website of George Galloway’s Respect party were the only files offered as evidence of the use of Unison computers for party political purposes. He was also charged with taking away a union PC. Other Plymouth branch officials pointed out that the computer in fact been given to him to do union work.. But Staunton was expelled from Unison in August 2007. ‘The motivations behind this expulsion are particularly suspect,’ said Bristol Indymedia, ‘considering that union officers certainly download documents from the Labour Party, the Lib Dems, SNP and so on. So why are left-wingers being singled out? The wording of some charges identified that membership or involvement with the leftwing grouping in Unison, the United Left, constituted a breach of democracy in Unison guidelines. If that is the case, the decision to expel Tony paves the way for further political attacks from Unison’s leadership.’ The attacks were already under way.
The Witch Hunt Begins
At Unison’s 2007 Local Government and National Delegate Conference in Brighton four London branches raised a challenge against the union’s Standing Orders Committee (SOC), the body responsible for deciding which branch motions can be debated at Unison conferences. These branches demanded to know ‘why our conferences are constantly denied the right to debate issues by the Standing Orders Committee just because some see them as too controversial. This year we couldn’t even debate the pensions dispute at our local government conference.’
Five members of these four branches produced a leaflet entitled ‘Whose Conference?’ on which the SOC was represented by a cartoon of the Three Wise Monkeys – Hear No, See No and Speak No Evil. The leaflet complained that the leadership was manipulating the Annual Conference, which should be the union’s sovereign body, and fixing its agenda.
The flier was distributed and proved a great success, with reps from around Britain asking for more copies. But on the third day of the conference, before the assembled delegates, the five who had produced the leaflet were openly accused of racism, seemingly on the basis that ‘monkey’ can be a term of racist abuse and the chair of the Standing Orders Committee is black. The five were suspended.
The widely-used Three Wise Monkeys motif in fact has its roots in Buddhist philosophy and the ancient ‘Hear No, See No, Speak No Evil’ proverb is known to everyone. The news of the accusation was met by widespread revulsion. Charges were quickly dropped against one of the five, Mathew Waterfall, secretary of Unison’s Hackney branch. The other four found themselves facing a disciplinary hearing. They are: Glen Kelly, secretary of Bromley local government branch and a member of Unison’s National Executive Committee; Onay Kasab, secretary of Greenwich local government branch; Suzanne Muna, Housing Corporation; and Hackney branch chair Brian Debus. All four are members of the Socialist Party which, like its northern counterpart the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), grew out of the expulsion of the so-called Militant Tendency from the Labour Party when under Neil Kinnock’s leadership. (Though there now seems to be little love between the two parties. When I was researching this the Socialist Party website reported their ‘stirring rally’ in support of Tommy Sheridan. It’s a fair bet that no-one from the Scottish Socialist Party, still reeling from being ripped asunder by Sheridan, bothered to turn up.)
By September 2007 the Unison Four had a defence campaign up and running to fight the charges of ‘racist intent’ made against them by the powerful Standing Orders Committee. Petitions were signed, speakers went to union meetings, and messages of support poured in.
‘Those who brought this charge need to take a lie down in a quiet room, possibly with whale music playing’
-Mark Thomas Comedian and campaigner Mark Thomas swiftly sprang to the defence of one of the accused, Onay Kasab, secretary of Unison’s Greenwich branch. ‘I have had the privilege of working with him on the Ilisu Dam Campaign,’ said Thomas, ‘and on the issue of trade unionist deaths in Columbia. To accuse him of being racist is utter stupidity and madness… those who brought this charge need to take a lie down in a quiet room, possibly with whale music playing, and get a rest or they need to acknowledge their actions are motivated by other factors.’ The racism charge has since been dropped and the four, who have the full support of their branches, are now being attacked ‘for producing and distributing a leaflet questioning the decisions of the Standing Orders Committee,’ a charge that the four’s defence campaign swiftly branded as ‘an outright threat to union democracy if members and branches cannot campaign against union decisions. If our employers had behaved in the way the union has in handling this case there would rightly be uproar. However senior officers are happy to employ the methods of the worst employers in order to silence opposition in the union.’
‘It may be necessary for some members to take a drop in pay to achieve equal pay’ -Unison
Onay Kasab was also threatened by Unison investigators for writing an article on single status in which he stated that his branch had voted to ‘reject any proposals that lead to a loss of a single penny from a single Unison member,’ telling him that this was against union policy because ‘it may be necessary for some members to take a drop in pay to achieve equal pay’!
That quote seems to encapsulate what is really happening in the higher echelons of Unison. The role of the trade union is supposed to be, by way of legal contract and moral obligation, to defend the pay, rights and conditions of its dues-paying members. That’s why workers join unions and pay dues from their, often very low, wages. Many of Unison’s 1.5 million public service workers are amongst Britain’s lowest paid. Unison donates millions of pounds from their dues to New Labour every year. Even when Big Money was throwing money at Tony Blair, Unison remained at the top of the donors’ list, despite the fact that an estimated 43% of its membership has opted out of paying the political levy. The leadership’s recent conduct in industrial actions evidences its latent function of propping up New Labour government. Scotland’s nursery nurses waged a long and brave strike campaign to improve their pay and conditions but, left by the bureaucracy to go it alone, were picked off district by district and returned to work with little or no gains. The one-day Pensions Strike in 2005 was the biggest industrial action un Britain since the 1926 General Strike, with millions striking against attacks on their pensions. But the second one-day strike was called off – because it coincided with local government elections in England and Wales. (Now that Unison members have voted for industrial action against the risible public sector raise offer of 2.4% it will be interesting to see how the union leadership tries to contain the growing rank and file anger as living costs soar, and New Labour teeters on the edge of oblivion. But I digress.)
‘I became a shop steward a few months before the Pension Strike,’ Murray recalls. ‘When Unison called us out we came out.. The members were loyal to the union. And in return they were royally shafted by Unison, had their ballot stolen and were left to negotiate individually.’ He pulls a card from his folder: ‘This was sent to me right after I was sacked.’ He reads: ‘“ If this was a bigger place with a strong union, we’d all be out on strike supporting you. As it is we’ve all been put in a position where we are divided and demoralised by the HERA [modernisation] process and fighting our own battles for our pathetic rates of pay to be held. It’s a ghastly situation and you who tried to protect us from it has come off worst. If I was younger I’d leave…” I found this on the Net,’ he says, and produces a copy of Socialist Appeal. ‘I know it’s produced by the Socialist Workers Party, but a lot of it struck a chord.’ He quotes highlighted phrases, such as “hung out to dry”... “the Unison bureaucracy stitched him up like a kipper”…“Unison was in cahoots with management”… “Unison are cuddling up to New Labour…if anyone stirs up trouble, as they see it, the bureaucracy slings them out on their ear… collaborating with management to victimise union activists”…and so on.’ It is an interesting document, and for the light it shines on the Unison witch-hunt it is reproduced below.
Hands Across the Sea
In late 2007 the witch-hunt spread to Northern Ireland. ‘Pat Lawlor, Unison convenor for nursing in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, who has continually campaigned for Unison members in opposition to low pay, cuts in services and privatisation, is currently under “investigation” by the union’s national executive,’ writes Eileen Keenan, a Unison member in Northern Ireland’s education sector. ‘This is after a spurious complaint was made against Pat for sending a message of solidarity to striking classroom assistants on 27 November 2007.’
That dispute by classroom assistants to defend their pay, terms and conditions became a protracted and bitter struggle between the striking workers, the Education and Library Board (ELB), and the Northern Ireland Assembly. ‘The proposed deal by the ElB,’ says Keenan, ‘amounted to a pay cut of up to 18.5% through extending their working hours and taking away special allowances from those workers. The classroom assistants refused this derisory offer and looked to their union
leaderships.’ Unison initially accepted the offer but was forced to backtrack when the membership rejected the deal. ‘Instead of balloting their members and calling for coordinated strike action amongst all the unions involved, the Unison leadership continually refused a ballot.’ (A different tactic from that used at Edinburgh College of Art when Unison City Branch full-timer John Ross simply stole the ballot results, and helped to get Murray sacked.)
‘A message is being sent out – if you stand up to and challenge the leadership and organise opposition to Labour’s policies then be prepared for being witch-hunted’
-The Defend the Four Campaign
Pat Lawlor expressed solidarity with the striking workers ‘and highlighted the disgraceful role of the right-wing leadership in Unison,’ writes Eileen Keenan. Since January 2008 Unison’s unelected regional hierarchy in Northern Ireland has twice tried to have Lawlor suspended from the union and he now faces disciplinary action. Both Lawlor and Keenan are members of the Socialist Party and the latter opens her article by describing the attacks as a ‘witch-hunt of members of the Socialist Party in Unison.’ The various Trotskyite groupings, like the Socialist Party and Socialist Workers Party, evidently like to present the witch-hunt as an attack on their members. As union activists they are in the firing line. But it seems that no one is safe. The Defend the Four Campaign is probably nearer the truth when it points out that ‘A message is being sent out – if you stand up to and challenge the leadership and organise opposition to Labour’s policies then be prepared for being witch-hunted.’
Commissars
Eddie Murray has never been a member of any of the political groupings at the centre of the Unison witch-hunt. ‘I’d never even heard of this “United Left” until I read the article about Tony Staunton in Indymedia,’ he insists, ‘let alone be part of it. Not my cup of tea at all. I’ve had arguments in the past with Trots about their hero James Connolly and his plan to put political officers in every union branch and weed out any member who disagreed with the political officer. It seems to me that’s exactly what Unison is doing. I suppose if you’re a party-political animal these “commissars” are a good idea – as long as they’re from your party. If the other side has them in place though, then you’re stuffed. It’s a bit ironic that followers of Connolly are being weeded out by Unison’s New Labour commissars. As far as I’m concerned a union should be a purely economic organisation, not affiliated to or controlled by any political party. Having said that though, my sympathies are entirely with those who have been witch-hunted.’
(A bit of history. Although Edinburgh-born James Connolly is now best remembered for his leading role in the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 he was primarily a labour organiser who believed strongly in unions working in tandem with a political party, a theory initially propounded by the now-forgotten ideologue Daniel De Leon who formed the first socialist party in the United States, along with an affiliated, party-controlled union. Murray’s reference is to Connolly’s work Socialism Made Easy in which he wrote: ‘I look forward to the time when every economic organisation [union] will have its Political Committee, just as it has… its Strike Committee, and when it will be considered to be as great… an act of scabbery to act against the former as the latter.’ Unison’s ‘political committee’ evidently operates under the title of the Standing Orders Committee.)
In February 2008 Murray and some friends, including another Unison shop steward, picketed the City Branch’s Annual General Meeting in Edinburgh and handed out 200 leaflets describing how the art college members’ ballot was stolen by City Branch convenor John Ross. ‘It was freezing,’ says Murray, ‘but we got a good response from Unison members as they went in. Many stopped to talk and ask questions. A couple of Scottish Socialist Party members told me that when they were elected as shop stewards they were summoned to the City Branch office and made to give a solemn verbal promise that they were not plotting to take over the union. Jeez. Talk about paranoia. That’s when it dawned on me that there really was a witch-hunt going on in Unison. I was shocked. And disgusted.’
The Certification Office
He noticed in the Indymedia article that Tony Staunton was taking his case to the Trade Union Certification Office. ‘All I knew about that body was that it was created by Margaret Thatcher to enforce her anti-union laws, but I thought I’d give it a bash and sent in a complaint. The Certification Officer replied by return of post and seemed quite sympathetic. But he pointed out that his office could only handle complaints that had already been through the Unison complaints procedure. I had resigned from Unison the day after I was sacked, without making a formal complaint, so I was snookered. I had also informed him that Unison’s City Branch was in breach of its own rules, as published online. He said that these were not rules, merely guidelines.
‘However, by a remarkable coincidence, on the same day that I received his reply I also got an envelope from Unison – it was a ballot paper for the election of some national committee! I was livid. Unison had stolen the art college members’ ballot papers and now they were inviting me to cast my vote for a committee. So I sent another complaint to the Certification Officer about being sent a ballot paper by Unison months after I had resigned from the union. He replied, enclosing a tome of previous case papers, and advising that in the matter of union ballot papers they could not deal with individual cases. So I gave up. A while after that I received another Unison ballot paper for some other committee so, what the hell, I voted for the lefty’
Others seem to have fared better with the Certification Office.
Fighting Back
‘By UNISON Socialist Appeal Supporters, Tuesday, 20 May 2008. Friday 16 May saw two unconnected judgements that have put a spoke in the wheel of the UNISON bureaucracy's witch hunt against prominent lefts in the union. The Certification Officer… has issued rulings in the case of Tony Staunton, the ex Plymouth branch secretary, who has now been expelled from the union, and also in the case of Yunus Bahksh, a member of the Health Service Group Executive and a branch secretary in Newcastle... In the Plymouth case, UNISON acted outside of its own rules in disbarring Tony Staunton from standing for the NEC while he was only suspended pending a disciplinary hearing. The ruling seemed to indicate as well that, had the case been lodged earlier, the suspension itself might have been ruled out of order. In Yunus's case the Certification Officer found that UNISON had acted illegally in suspending him from office. The decision means that Yunus should be allowed back immediately onto the HSGE and have his suspension lifted.’
Just prior to this, on 14 May, about 70 protestors lobbied the ‘disciplinary hearing’ of the Unison Four ‘Members of all four Unison branches were outside the hearing with placards and banners to give support to their branch officers,’ writes Jane James. ‘The four gave determined speeches with a supportive speech from Mathew Waterfall, the secretary of Hackney branch, who was originally investigated but not charged. He pointed out that he was the only one of the five originally accused who was not a member of the Socialist Party and the only one who has had the charges against him dropped. But the union wants him to go on a race awareness course - even though he is the elected branch secretary of one of the most ethnically diverse Unison branches in the country! When some of the supporters went to the Unison head office after the lobby they demanded to see general secretary Dave Prentis. There was so sign of him but instead the protesters were photographed by Unison staff! The venue for the hearings was the Hilton Metropole Hotel in central London which is thought to have cost the union £4,000 a day. After three days of the hearings only one of the four's case had been dealt with. The hearings are now postponed till after the Unison conference.’
With awareness of the Unison witch-hunt growing, others, not involved in any of the political groupings, were taking note of the sordid events. TV impressionist and political satirist Rory Bremner, sent a message of support to the four suspended activists:
‘Unison… need to be very aware of the widespread ridicule this will attract to their union and its leaders’
Rory Bremner ‘On the face of it, Unison are about to make themselves look a laughing stock,’ he said. ‘They need to be very aware of the widespread ridicule this will attract to their union and its leaders, and think again before the papers get hold of this and make them look foolish and authoritarian. They don’t need this distraction.’
The Unison 2008 Annual Conference kicked off in mid-June. The ‘Whose Conference?’ leaflet has been reprinted – without the Wise Monkeys graphic – and is being redistributed to delegates. ‘Excellent chance of it all hitting the fan at Unison conference today,’ writes ex- New Zealand print journalist Kate Belgrave, now living in London and contributing to the Liberal Conspiracy website. ‘The four left-leaning union activists that the union bureaucracy is presently trying to expel are holding a special protest meeting at midday,’ she writes on 17 June. ‘It’s a meeting which anybody who is anybody in Unison has a substantial stake in. The union bureaucracy’s witchhunt of these four respected officers is easily the biggest issue at conference this year. There are those who think that the union’s future is written in this battle. Either left or the right in the union must win.’ She informs her readers of the events of last year’s conference when a third of all branch motions were ruled out of order by the Standing Orders Committee and adds (in pssst parentheses) that ‘word is out this year, about half of all branch motions have been ruled out.’ The fear and loathing is intensifying. ‘A helpful mole tells us that from this point on,’ writes Belgrave, ‘the policy is that applications for visitor’s passes will be vetted closely by trusted union toadies – an unusual development, it seems. Until now, interested parties could turn up at the conference centre and ask for a visitor’s pass with a view to sitting in the visitors’ gallery for an hour or two and listening to conference debates. Even I managed to get one. Now – I trust I have this right – the names of all applicants for visitor passes will be examined for Known Commies, and handed to a strike force on those occasions when the wrong answer chunters out of the printer. Times are clearly rather tense. So goes a witchhunt…’
This reporter didn’t apply for a visitor’s pass. Too scared that if they got my address the SOC would send a bunch of Unison ‘veterans’ to my front door and I, like Morgan Tsvangirai, would have to hide in the Dutch embassy.
SOURCES:
(The term ‘witch-hunt has variant spellings. The versions used in the articles have been adhered to.)
Moira McKim, Anger Grows at Edinburgh Art College, Indymedia Scotland online 12/2007
Newspaper of Indymedia Scotland, Union member sacked while Unison colludes with management and Unison branch officer expelled for reading a leaflet in No.1, 02/2008
Jane James, Unison members say 'no' to witch hunt http://socialistparty.org.uk 21/05/2008
Eileen Keenan, Unison witch-hunt hits Northern Ireland http://socialistparty.org.uk 11/06/2008
Socialist Appeal, Unison: What’s going on? (no date) www.socialist.net. 17/06/2008
Kate Belgrave, Unison conference: the witchhunt, www.liberalconspiracy.org.uk 17/06/2008
Interview with sacked Unison steward Eddie Murray 18/06/2008
Go to www.stopthewitchhunt.org.uk for updates
Link to the Eddie Murray story
http://scotland.indymedia.org/node/3900
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