End the silence on Reform’s war on workers!
Reform's new salvo of planned attacks against trade unions and our members is being met with silence from Sharon Graham. Reform have announced plans to rip up workplace equality protections, create a UK ICE terror unit, and threaten public sector trade unionists who are defending workers from attack across Reform-controlled councils. We must end the silence. We must Reunite to end Reform’s war on workers.
Nigel Farage has unveiled the troupe of ghouls now leading Reform’s "shadow cabinet". First among this cabinet of the shadows is Reborn Tory Suella Braverman who claims Reform will repeal the Equality Act on their first day of government.
This would immediately end legal protections aimed at preventing discrimination based on age, disability, gender, pregnancy, race, religion and belief, and sexual orientation – for workers, agency workers and job applicants. You would be hard pressed to find anyone who will not need protection from discrimination on at least one of those grounds during our working lives.
Repealing the act would also end protections against victimisation and harrassment, returning us to the industrial dark ages. It would be the overturning of hard won legislation trade unionists spent decades fighting to achieve. It would be a triumph for the most predatory in our workplaces.
This should not have been met with silence from our union.
At the same press conference, Robert Jenrick claimed Reform would support state intervention in order to ‘salvage’ strategic industries, citing steelmaking, automotive and defence.
In reality, Reform have taken £100,000 from venture capitalists Greybull, the very outfit which took British Steel to the brink of collapse in 2019. In reality, Reform’s attacks continue against green industries, including electric vehicle production in the UK.
Our union must say it plainly. Reform are lying. They are the party of the billionaires, asset strippers and financiers who have spent thirty years destroying jobs across UK industry. These Thatcherites voted against the Employment Rights Bill at every given opportunity. Lest we forget, Reborn Tories Jenrick and Braverman voted for the 2016 anti-unions laws that the new bill is set to repeal.
Jenrick’s discovery of industrial strategy is a cynical attempt to divide us. It allows Reform to pretend they would support some workers, as they plan to plunge the knife into thousands of others.
Even if a Reform government were to intervene in industry, it would only be to prop up bosses and their profits, not to defend jobs.
Importantly, many thousands of workers in steel, automotive and defence would also be attacked by Reform ripping up our workplace protections covered in the Equality Act.
This may be news to Farage and Jenrick, but steelworkers need maternity leave too! The idea that manufacturing - be that steel, automotive or defence – is some reservation of only straight, white, ageless men exposes a conceited ignorance. Far from being the party of industrial workers, Reform do not even know who we are!
This attempt to water down and steal industrial demands of the trade unions while directly attacking our members should have been challenged immediately. Failing to call out this con trick for what it is fails our members – in those industries and throughout our movement.
Meanwhile Reform’s candidate in Gorton and Denton, Matthew Goodwin, has claimed the party will put public sector unions ‘under review’. This is no idle threat. Unite and other public sector union members face attacks on their jobs across the dozen Local Authorities already controlled by Reform including Kent, Durham and Derbyshire.
Chillingly, Reform's 'shadow home secretary' Zia Yusuf followed these attacks by announcing the planned creation of a UK 'ICE' unit modelled on the paramilitaries unleashed by Donald Trump
There is a vacuum and it is allowing Reform to parade itself as being on the side of workers while importing the worst terror tactics of Trump's America. Our unions and our members are firmly in Reform’s sights. It is no little surprise that Sharon Graham did not address any of this in her appearance at the trade union Stand up to Racism conference on Saturday 21st.
Graham did not comment on Reform’s new plan to scrap protections against workplace discrimination. Instead she opted to mention Labour at least a dozen times in a speech complete with familiar soundbites about fiscal rules and taxation.
Graham did not comment on Reform’s plans to attack unions in the public sector. Instead she debuted a new piece of personal lore, reminiscing about witnessing fights in a Humberside food factory. It is not for us to question the reality of these memories, but we do question their relevance.
The conference was an opportunity for Graham to distance herself from her own worrying comments that she would "talk to the devil himself" when Sky's Trevor Phillips asked about future talks with Farage. The conference was an opportunity for Sharon Graham to prove us wrong and show she is willing and able to confront Reform and the far right. That is the historic responsibility of the General Secretary of one of the largest trade unions in the UK and Ireland. Instead we see too little, too late.
When our members – even those within our union’s own offices – are under attack, we can and must do so much more.
We must end Reform’s war on workers.
We must stand up to Reform’s attempts to divide us.
We must Reunite.
