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One of Britain’s biggest trade unions Unite is caught in a bitter intra-union battle with the GMB union, which represents Unite staff – in a fight mired in allegations of bullying, harassment and factional power plays.
Some members of the GMB union working for Unite went on strike last week and are formally in dispute with their employer. The irony of staff in Unite’s ‘Bargaining and Disputes Support Unit’ going on strike has not been lost on union figures.
Eight GMB members in that unit, plus supporters, picketed Unite’s London HQ, protesting what they claimed was a “toxic workplace culture”. They allege bullying by their boss Jack Clarke – who is the husband of Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham – and other managers in the disputes unit.
The GMB union says the eight staffers “voted to walk out after Unite failed to suspend managers accused of bullying and victimised those who spoke out.” And they claim Unite engaged in “union busting” by suspending all their striking members ahead of the walkout, which ran from December 3rd-6th.
Unite claims its investigations into the original bullying allegations against Clarke and other managers found “no evidence”, and alleges they were made “vexatiously”.
But the picture is muddied by the fact that neither side is willing to say specifically, on the record, what the dispute is really about. We’ve tried our best to find out.
Unite figures have responded in turn by accusing the GMB members of engaging in factional warfare against Graham, and suggesting provocatively that they have “much to lose” by inquiries into alleged corruption under the union’s previous leadership.
A four page legal letter Byline Times received after we put the claims to the union last week makes clear that Unite is taking the dispute and GMB’s allegations very seriously indeed.
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Claims and Counter-Claims
In the letter, lawyers acting for the union – as well as Sharon Graham, and dispute unit boss Jack Clarke – hint at potential defamation proceedings.
They claim the GMB union is engaged in a “factional” attack on Unite leader Sharon Graham – and make counter-allegations that two GMB members were suspended in March over claims of male harassment against a female colleague. The GMB is categorical however that “there are no sexual harassment allegations against our members.”
Byline Times understands that in March this year, five trainees in Unite’s bargaining/dispute unit demanded a pay rise. A Unite source suggested it amounted to £15,000 per staffer, to around £70,000. These five are believed to be at the heart of the current dispute.
Update 1pm 13th December: GMB has responded to this claim, saying: “One part of the the grievance was about establishing pay parity with other researchers employed by Unite.
“Unite are spinning this as a demand for a £15,000 pay rise, when all that was asked for was for Unite to pay the collectively agreed rate to all researchers who are employed to carry out essentially the same role.”
Byline Times was told that around this time, two Unite employees – believed to be GMB members – were then suspended pending an investigation into the alleged bullying of a female member of staff in the BDSU. The investigation is ongoing.
Senior Unite sources say that after this, the two employees accused of bullying and a number of others submitted a collective grievance against the BDSU management. This included their initial pay dispute, as well as accusations of “bullying and harassment” against BDSU management. Which includes Graham’s husband, Jack Clarke.
Fast forward to October and November, and the GMB was mobilising for strike action within Unite.
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Six more GMB members were suspended by Unite officials on November 18th – the same day their strike ballot closed. Unite insists these suspensions had nothing to do with their plans to take strike action, but was instead to “safeguard” a female member of staff and others, due to “continuing issues of alleged harassment and a hostile working environment.”
The GMB strongly disputes this characterisation. They say two members identified as “ringleaders” were suspended within 24 hours of submitting a collective grievance in March.
“At no point in their suspension letters or in their investigation meetings were these members accused of harassment and no evidence to support such a claim has ever been provided.
“Only in recent weeks has Unite started to claim that harassment has taken place and we believe this is nothing more than an attempt to smear our members and justify the victimisation they have been subjected to for rightly challenging bullying in their workplace,” the GMB spokesperson said.
Leadership Under Pressure
The dispute has exposed deep divisions within Unite. The union’s Executive Council meeting on December 3rd was hastily moved from London to Edinburgh, coinciding with the first day of the strike.
GMB members in Scotland picketed the meeting anyway, wearing masks of Sharon Graham’s face. GMB strikers and supporters also picketed the union’s London HQ in Holborn.
And a body of Unite staff representatives threatened wider strike action – suggesting they would even break anti-strike laws – if any staff member was suspended for refusing to cross GMB picket lines.
Unite argue the GMB – subject to several reviews lambasting internal misogyny – is engaged in a sexist fight against Sharon Graham. (The eight GMB members in formal dispute with their bosses at Unite are all understood to be men).
But the GMB countered that “several women have been forced to leave Unite’s employment due to toxic behaviours” in the disputes unit.
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The Shadow of a Hotel
Hanging over the dispute is a long-standing controversy about Unite’s finances, which is subject to multiple investigations.
The UK’s Serious Fraud Office is probing the union’s Birmingham hotel and conference centre, commissioned and built under left-wing former leader Len McCluskey, and now facing corruption allegations which McCluskey is understood to strongly dispute.
The building cost the union £112m to build. But it has since been valued at just £29m, suggesting £83m may have been wasted. And as the BBC has reported, a KC-led inquiry commissioned by Sharon Graham also identified a “mystery” £14m missing from the project’s accounts. Unite has not filed audited accounts since 2020.
Sharon Graham won election against Steve Turner, a close ally of Len McCluskey, in 2021 on a platform of investigating the conference centre scandal.
Now Graham has publicly linked the current dispute to this investigation, writing on social media on the final day of the GMB strike last week: “Despite the vile, ugly attacks on me from those with much to lose, I have kept my promise” to release findings about “potential corruption around the Birmingham Hotel.” (The plan is to release an interim report in the first quarter of 2025).
And writing to Byline Times, Unite repeated these claims, saying: “Officers in the GMB and supporters of the men in dispute have linked up with those with much to lose – who have been mounting an attack on the general secretary since she started uncovering [alleged] corruption.”
The GMB, for its part, accuses Unite of using “smoke and mirror tactics” to “divert attention from the serious workplace issues that have been uncovered.”
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Strike-breaking is now mandatory.
Bad Look
The dispute comes at a sensitive time for both unions. The GMB faces its own challenges over institutional sexism, with former staff planning to approach the Equality and Human Rights Commission over alleged failures to tackle misogyny identified in a devastating 2020 report by KC Karon Monaghan.
Unite’s United Left grouping, aligned to former leader McCluskey, has reacted with anger to Graham’s suggestions of “corruption” under the previous leadership. Many will be nervously awaiting further potential damaging revelations about the conference centre project.
Both unions are among the largest in Britain, with Unite’s having around a million members to GMB’s ~550,000.
Both are affiliated to the Labour Party, and have been its biggest donors until scaling back funding under Keir Starmer.
And both unions are affiliated to the Trades Union Congress, which could be brought in to mediate between the two sides should the dispute escalate. The spat will cause headaches for all sides should it spill over.
As one Unite source put it: “The union is very divided with factions running rife. But it doesn’t look good, this inter-union war. Big industrial battles are getting lost amid the fighting.”
Much is murky in this story. But what we do know is that the atmosphere between Unite and the GMB unions – whose histories each stretch back over 100 years – is toxic. Sooner or later, that will start to impact people far beyond Unite’s Holborn HQ.
This piece has been updated post-publication to include a fresh response from GMB union. We have also removed a reference to ‘sexual’ harassment allegations against GMB members. We understand the internal Unite investigation is not into allegations of a sexual nature. A line saying Len McCluskey re-stood for election in 2021 has also been amended (he did not). Apologies for the error.
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Josiah Mortimer also writes the On the Ground column, exclusive to the print edition of Byline Times.
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