Sharon Graham’s Strike Shame: Staff Bullying and Union Busting
This month marks the year anniversary of one of the most extraordinarily bleak moments in Unite’s history - a strike by our union’s own staff over the ‘toxic and bullying culture’ of the research team led by Sharon Graham’s husband Jack Clarke. For four days in December, and throughout the weeks preceding it, Graham’s closest team waged a campaign of abject union busting and crossed picket lines.
These are facts that anyone who still believes in Graham’s rhetoric of militancy and left political purity must pause to consider. This is the reality of what they are supporting. No one can be allowed to say they did not know.
Within months of being elected Graham told Labour List of her plans to hire forensic accountants. “The difference between a forensic account and a Companies House account is it goes right underneath all of those figures.” To do more of this work, “we’re going to be bringing in people who are experts in this field in-house” … “I also want an economist to be working with us full-time.”
When established, the ‘Bargaining and Disputes Support Unit’ (BDSU) of hand-picked and carefully recruited forensic accountants and research specialists was acknowledged as one of the few manifesto promises Graham had delivered. The picket line outside Holborn on 3rd December exposed the grisly reality behind the claims.
Strikes by trade union staff are not altogether unheard of, but the vicious union-busting response by Sharon Graham’s closest team absolutely is.
The researchers’ December picket line was confronted by a "counter-demo” led by Graham’s self-styled enforcer Chris Stiles and our union’s Organising Director Tayra Lopes-Lister, complete with banners attacking the GMB. Management figures including Onay Kasab, Graham’s disputes point man, public events stand-in and assumed successor, not only chose to come to Holborn, but chose to cross the picket line.
This was only the most public eruption of a campaign of bullying against the BDSU staffers. By the day of the strike all of the staff who had entered the original collective grievance which had begun the dispute had been suspended. Two had been suspended on the day after their collective grievance was raised. All had faced smears, including on social media by anonymous twitter accounts conveniently repeating the attacks which then appeared on Chris Stiles’ banners. Misleading statements were briefed to the press (not unlike recent claims against a whistleblower who has come forward with evidence of alleged "corruption" and "election rigging.") To cap it all, the union's Executive Council was hastily moved to meet in Scotland in a desperate attempt to avoid the embarassment of a picket line at head office.
Peeling back the claims and counter-claims, the simple truth is that all of this began with the BDSU researchers requesting a meeting with their line management over grading. As a GMB letter to Unite’s Executive Council said:
“Our members first tried to approach BDSU management in March this year, to raise basic workplace issues of pay and conditions that they hoped could be resolved constructively. Instead, they have been subjected to bullying and victimisation. BDSU management has not held one single meeting with our members during this time to even hear their concerns.”
“On 26th June, after almost four months of attempting to raise their industrial concerns internally but being repeatedly ignored, a group of nine GMB members in the BDSU submitted a collective grievance to Unite regarding their concerns over pay and grading issues, use of insecure employment contracts and the culture of bullying and victimisation they have experienced in the department.”
Sharon Graham and her team make much of our union’s dispute record – with endless attempts to build her reputation with press releases about the struggles of others against the worst employers. Devastatingly, the BDSU dispute is one of the very few disputes Sharon Graham can actually take credit for. And she was on the wrong side of it.
It is inconceivable that Sharon Graham was unaware of the attempts at picket line indimidation and union busting by her key lieutenants. It is inconceivable that Chris Stiles and Organising Director Tayra Lopes-Lister would have decided to stage their ludicrous "counter-demo" by themselves. It is not credible that Sharon Graham was unaware of the deep problems within the department run by her own husband. A department Graham had publicly highlighted as a manifesto pledge delivered. Even if Sharon Graham was ignorant of all of that, she has not taken any action since these issues became very public.
Instead Sharon Graham and her acolytes should have followed the vast majority of other union staffers, officers and organisers who supported the dispute, refused to make themselves complicit in union-busting tactics, and even joined their brothers and sisters on the picket line. In fact, the GMB branch representing staff in Holborn also balloted for industrial action against the same toxic culture.
Despite months of build up behind closed doors and the sudden public eruption on the Holborn picket line, the BDSU team’s dispute suddenly fell silent. All that can be said is:
· The union’s Legal Director has claimed Unite does not use Non Disclosure Agreements.
· Financial disclosure forced by Executive Council members show that the union has used settlement agreements during Sharon Graham’s time in office.
· Neither the original grading issue or the subsequent accusations of bullying at the centre of the dispute have been settled. The smears and accusations spread online about the staffers were never repudiated. The GMB branch has since conducted a survey of members employed by Unite about the ongoing toxic culture of the union.
· The union has not investigated the serious accusations of bullying and union busting against Jack Clarke and other management figures, or the very public act of attempted picket line intimidation by Stiles and Lopes-Lister.
· None of the BDSU researchers, forensic accountants or specialists who were signatories to the grievance or took part in the strike action are employed by the union today. None have ever spoken publicly about the dispute since. (Extracts used to inform this piece were circulated to the Unite EC during the dispute by the GMB.)
You will have to draw your own conclusions from these facts. Anybody who comes into contact with our union’s employees – be they staff, officers or organisers – can be left with any other impression but deep problems exist within our union.
The last word has not been said about the BDSU dispute, but for now it can be left with two women who left the BDSU citing management’s behavior towards women. The unnamed sisters said:
Sister A:
“Our whole team was largely isolated from the rest of the trade union from the outset. As soon as we began working from the Holborn office we were advised that other Unite teams were not to be trusted. I remember [CENSORED] being very angry that someone had ‘naively’ spoken to a different Unite team about a work issue. It created an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear.”
“[CENSORED] extreme reaction to the issues collectively raised seemed unhinged. Members of the team were simply requesting a meeting to find a solution to a very specific issue."
“I cannot speak for other women’s reasons for leaving Unite. … Put simply, I was intimidated by [CENSORED.] Ultimately this is what led to my resignation from Unite.”
Sister B:
“I worked at Unite in the BDSU team for just under two years. I left Unite due to the bullying and poor employment practices that I experienced.
“From the meeting in April 2024, I was subject to bullying by [CENSORED.] He took away my work responsibilities and generally ignored me for months. He made unfounded and belittling comments.”
“The working environment was hostile and dysfunctional. Like other members of the team, I was told not to contact people outside the department. Management were generally absent or hostile.”
“The department lost four women in a row, and in every case this can be attributed to decisions made by management to undermine them. All the women who have left experienced unexplained and unfair decisions being made behind their backs by management, while they devalued our work, skills and ideas.”
These are the facts about Sharon Graham’s management of our union.
No one can be allowed to say they did not know.
It’s time to end the toxicity.
It’s time to Reunite.
