Union general secretary’s ‘unhinged’ letter to staff, officers and organisers continues to backfire as insiders say numbers she is now attacking were part of her job to report

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham’s bizarre letter to all the union’s staff last week, attempting to undermine a number of criticism that have been levelled at her and her management of the union, was described by union insiders as ‘unhinged’ and a ‘rant’ – and it continues to backfire.

As Skwawkbox has already covered, Graham told recipients that the union under her will always prioritise jobs in the weapons industry above the fight to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Her letter also claimed that an unfavourable interim financial report had been faked wholesale and that the forger had gone to the extent of copying the font and layout of actual reports to fool members. The union did not respond to an enquiry whether it stood by the claim despite the screenshots of the report appearing to show that it was found on the union’s official ‘Sharepoint’ network. The letter also claimed the union’s financial value was ‘pushing up towards half a billion pounds’ – but insiders say that the value was already around half a billion when she took over two and a half years ago.

And another issue with Graham’s claims has arisen – relating to Unite’s membership figures. In an apparent attempt to refute union insiders’ claims that membership has fallen by more than two hundred thousand during her tenure, Graham wrote:

Despite inheriting membership figures that included 32,000 members on union funded subs (essentially free) and dealing with a 60,000 loss in aviation and other areas during Covid, the work we have all put in collectively has recouped these loses and more. Furthermore, we recorded an additional 16,647 net membership increase in 2023. These are real membership increases, not the phony [sic] figures of the past.

Emphasis added

One insider told Skwawkbox that the 32,000 ‘essentially free’ members were in fact members supported by Unite when they lost their jobs during the pandemic, so that they could retain their membership protections until they found new work.

But even more significantly, another said that before Ms Graham became general secretary, one of her key responsibilities as head of organising was to monitor and report on the membership – and that the membership figures before her tenure were therefore compiled and reported by her and her organising team.

The senior insider told Skwawkbox:

The figures she’s calling phoney are her own figures.

Skwawkbox wrote to Unite:

Another question with regard to Ms Graham’s email to officers, organisers and staff. This one concerns her claim of ‘phony [membership] figures of the past’. She wrote:

“Despite inheriting membership figures that included 32,000 members on union funded subs (essentially free) and dealing with a 60,000 loss in aviation and other areas during Covid, the work we have all put in collectively has recouped these loses and more. Furthermore, we recorded an additional 16,647 net membership increase in 2023. These are real membership increases, not the phony figures of the past.”

Ms Graham as head of organising was responsible for reporting membership figures to the general secretary and executive. Is she really saying that she submitted ‘phony’ [sic] numbers? By 5pm today, please.

At the time of writing, more than ninety minutes after the reply deadline provided as standard journalistic practice, no reply had been received from the union.

The outrage provoked by the letter is not the first time members have been angered over Sharon Graham’s position on Gaza. She has been alleged by insiders to have:

• banned Unite officials and national banners from pro-Gaza protests
• banned and smeared films and books exposing the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam
• placed an official under investigation who refused to cancel a Palestine solidarity fringe event at Labour’s 2023 annual conference
• told her chief of staff to threaten a soon-to-retire official with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians

Her supporters also prevented debate and votes on Gaza at a meeting of the union’s elected executive earlier this month.

Her tenure as Unite boss has also been marked by a string of other allegations – which neither she nor the union has denied – including destruction of evidence against her husband in threat, misogyny and bullying complaints brought by union employees. She is also embroiled in both an employment tribunal for discrimination and a defamation lawsuit brought by Irish union legend Brendan Ogle for the union’s treatment of him and comments made about him by Graham and her close ally Tony Woodhouse.

According to human rights group Euro Med Monitor, since 7 October last year Israel has killed over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded more than double that number, overwhelmingly women and children and many of them with life-changing injuries, while Gaza’s health and school systems have been bombed into collapse, often using US- and UK-made weapons and systems. More than a million people have been forcibly displaced and Gaza is in famine because of Israel’s blockade of food and vital supplies. Israel is formally on trial for genocide before the International Court of Justice and ordered to stop its slaughter – and has been found by UN human rights investigators to be committing genocide.

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