1.35 million euros flushed on legal team over 9-day case according to union sources – and that’s just the tribunal, with the defamation suit to follow

Image: S Walker

Sources within the union say that Sharon Graham’s Unite is spending spending €150,000 a day just on the fees of its legal team to defend the discrimination tribunal case brought against Unite by leading Irish trade unionist Brendan Ogle – a staggering €1,350,000 across the planned nine days of the Workplace Relations Commission hearing in Dublin, not including court and other costs.

Ogle brought his complaint against his union employers after he was sidelined, following his successful battle against neck cancer, to an office fifty miles away from his Dublin home, despite a promise from Ms Graham’s predecessor Len McCluskey that his job would be kept open for him pending the outcome of his treatment. Cancer qualifies as a protected characteristic under equality legislation in both Ireland and the UK.

Ogle told the tribunal last week that another senior Unite employee in Ireland called him to a meeting after his return to work and told Ogle that:

he’d been told by Sharon Graham to draw up a strategic plan for the Republic of Ireland and I was not to be in it.

The case could, presumably, easily have been settled for no more, and probably considerably less, than €1.35m – but Unite has deployed no fewer than seven lawyers to defend it:

1 Senior barrister
1 Junior barrister
1 Legal Director
3 Solicitors
2 Legal Execs

Ogle, in contrast, has a junior barrister and a solicitor.

As well as the employment tribunal case, Brendan Ogle is also suing Graham, her ally Tony Woodhouse and Unite for defamation over comments made about him to union members at different events. Unite is employing the same legal firm – one of the world’s most expensive and profitable – in the defamation case, probably at similar or even greater cost.

One union source told Skwawkbox:

That’s the entire annual subs at full rate of 5,769 members. Sharon hasn’t published an Annual Report since she became general secretary. That’s unheard of – and for someone who has spent so much time accusing others of malpractice, it’s extraordinary.

The union’s ‘disgusting’ abuse toward Ogle on his return from cancer treatment triggered widespread outrage among grassroots members, politicians and community groups – anger so serious that an entire sector branch threatened to disaffiliate entirely from Unite, the well-known ‘Right2Water’ campaign said it will no longer work with Unite, Unite’s Community section in Ireland condemned the ‘injustice inflicted’ on him and members picketed general secretary Sharon Graham’s long-delayed visit to Dublin last month.

Sharon Graham’s tenure at Unite has also been marked by a string of other serious allegations, which neither she nor the union has ever denied – of abuse, cover-up and failure to protect women:

• that she attempted to have evidence destroyed in bullying and misogyny complaints about her husband, whom she now employs in her office despite a final warning from the union for his behaviour
• after her supporters failed in their bid to take control of the Unite executive despite ‘dark money’ spending on advertising, ineligible and racist members being allowed to stand and the alleged use of paid organisers in and following the exec election campaign, her faction has resorted to Starmerite tactics to try to discredit the executive members’ election of a new left-wing union chair and both vice-chairs, as well as the vital Finance and General Purpose Committee

In addition, she has been exposed behind the union’s decision to ban showings in Unite’s buildings of a film exposing racism, smears, rigging and abuse by the Labour right and has appeared to grow increasingly cosy with red-Tory Labour ‘leader’ Keir Starmer, despite Starmer’s lies, his contempt for democracy, his u-turns on promises to Unite members and his regime’s repeated blocking of Unite-backed parliamentary candidates.

Unite did not respond to a request for comment.

Update: more than two hours after the response deadline – and an hour after publication of this article – Unite responded with a generic denial:

“This story – like the other stories that The Skwawkbox has published as part of its smear campaign – is untrue.”

The statement, which did not specify whether the amount spent is higher or lower or by how much, went on to smear this site, implying the scrutiny of Ms Graham’s spending and activity was linked to a Birmingham hotel and conference centre project and Ms Graham’s ‘findings’ about it.

Ms Graham was part of the group of senior Unite figures that approved the Birmingham project. Her close ally Tony Seaman was the ‘project-specific convenor’ on the project, a role that appears to have been created especially to accommodate him. Unite, with Graham as general secretary, subsequently whitewashed racism findings against Mr Seaman, despite agreeing that he had made racist comments.

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