The Real Unite

On Monday the Unite Executive Council met in Cardiff. Or rather half of the EC met.

At a reported cost of over £80,000 of members’ money (due to a contract signed by McCluskey underlings), these things are not cheap. But instead of representing members, the United Left Bloc and their “allies” chose to leave the meeting after less than one hour and sit in the bar on expenses until Thursday.

This was the meeting where the timeline for the interim report into alleged corruption under the McCluskey regime was set to be tabled.

Needless to say that first report into alleged corruption will be coming out regardless.

Everyone else stayed and went through business that included:

• Section 114s and threats to members jobs in local government
• The threat to Grangemouth, other major industrial issues and our response
• The new context for defence and implications for jobs in aerospace and other sectors
• Live disputes affecting thousands of our members across the Union
• The Government’s new employment rights bill and its impact on trade unions and workers

It’s unfortunate that many members had zero representation at the EC thanks to some of the most farcical factional manoeuvring to have ever taken place within Unite.

This is the culture that allowed the conditions for possible corruption to exist in the first place.

So, here are those so-called “representatives” who took the hotel, the meals and the expenses, but refused to attend the meeting:

London: Paula Brennan

Scotland: Eddie Cassidy and Sylvia Stewart

East Midlands: Raffiq Moosa and Dawn Borthwick (Both via Zoom, left after 5 minutes to deliberately make the meeting inquorate)

West Midlands: Maggie Ryan and Nick Wareing

North East, Yorkshire and Humberside: Michelle Smith

Ireland: Marie Casey

Graphical Paper and Media & Information Technology: Tom Murphy

Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals , Process and Textiles: Cliff Bowen

Automotive: Debbie Dempsey and Craig McDonald

Civil Air Transport: Jas Gill

Community Youth Workers and Not For Profit: Ruth Hayes

Education: Ken Drury

Energy and Utilities: Nick Jeffery

Engineering, Manufacturing and Steel: John Clarke & Carl Needham (Both via zoom, left after 5 minutes to deliberately make the meeting inquorate)

Food, Drink and Agriculture: Matt Gould

Health: Steve Thompson (Via Zoom, left after 5 minutes to deliberately make the meeting inquorate)

Finance and Legal: Carolanne Watson (Via Zoom, left after 5 minutes to deliberately make the meeting inquorate)

Unite Construction, Allied Trades and Technician: Stuart Grice

Local Authorities: Brian Robertson

Passenger Transport: Natalie Osbourne, Patricia Davis and Paul Ainsworth

Aerospace: Mark Porter (Via Zoom, left after 5 minutes to deliberately make the meeting inquorate)

LGBTQ+: Jenny Douglas

Womens: Angela Duerden

Youth: Frankie Leach (Via Zoom, left after 5 minutes to deliberately make the meeting inquorate)