Unite

Results in the health unions’ consultations over pay have, so far, been positive. The Royal College of Midwives voted 75% yes, on a 66% turnout. In Scotland threshold targets were also met in consultations with good majorities for industrial action: RCN 90%, Unison 91%, GMB 97% and Unite 89%. A further year of pay cuts, the increased NHS crisis, and the context of strike action in other sectors is making a significant difference to voting numbers this year. Consultations for Unite and GMB (England) will be complete by the end of this month, 11 September and 27 September respectively. Formal...

Local government workers in Scotland should reject the new offer and restart the strikes. Workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland should join them. The last two weeks’ coordinated and targeted strikes by the three local government unions in Scotland (Unison, GMB and Unite) have pushed up the offer from 2% before action was discussed, to 3.5%, then to 5%, then to a differentiated flat-rate offer (but not consolidated), and now to a new offer, consolidated. Targeted strikes of bin and recycling workers rolled out beyond Edinburgh to two thirds of the councils, and the unions planned for...

Probably over a thousand people packed into the Save London Transport rally organised by the RMT on 31 August. The main hall at the TUC headquarters was packed, there was an overflow room and people were struggling to get in. No doubt a lot had come to see and hear left-wing US Senator Bernie Sanders. In addition to RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch, we also heard heard from John McDonnell MP, a CWU Royal Mail striker, a disability rights activist and representatives of sister London transport unions ASLEF, TSSA and Unite (among others). The turnout was not the only good thing about the rally...

We have been debating Sharon Graham's record so far as General Secretary of Unite the Union, and the issues it raises for the union and the wider labour movement. We will post more articles here as they are published. If you'd like contribute to the debate, email awl@workersliberty.org . For our position and debates on the contest in which Graham was elected last year, see here . For our ideas on transforming Unite, see here . • Sharon Graham: posturing and demagogy in place of struggle? (Ann Field) • Sharon Graham: quotes out of context (Mark Simon) • We were right to back Sharon Graham...

Two recent articles have offered different assessments of Unite's activity since Sharon Graham was elected as general secretary.

Local government workers’ strikes in Scotland have already brought some improvements in the below-inflation pay offer from the councils. Before the strikes started the councils upped the offer from 2% to 3.5%. Then, on 19 August, to 5%. On 29 August they shifted further, to (a dodgy version of) the £1,925 flat-rate offered in England. Unite has rejected the latest offer, Unison is consulting members while recommending rejection, and strikes set to start 6 September are still on. As of October, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reckons that the lowest-income 20% will be facing an 18% price...

• Debate here . Ann Field, in her article 'Sharon Graham and Labour: posturing and demagogy in place of struggle?' , builds her argument like a badly constructed dry stone wall: by the time the edifice is finished, it only takes a gust of common sense to bring it down. The stacking of quote upon quote from the press is used by Field to build her argument, but no adequate context is given. For example, Sharon Graham is criticised for her position on the Coventry bin strike, when Unite members were facing a Labour Council that were using their own ‘at arm’s length’ private waste disposal company...

Unite has already stated it rejects the local government pay offer (a flat pay rise for £1,925 for every scale point). The GMB has not made its position clear. Unison has launched a consultative ballot (closing 19 September). The Unison National Joint Council (NJC) committee has made no recommendation to members. We hear that the right wing on the committee wanted to recommend acceptance. Previously Unison had said that the union would move to straight to an industrial action ballot. On receiving the pay offer the union dropped that and went for consultation. Under the rules of the...

Running true to form, Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham responded to Keir Starmer’s ban on Labour Party front benchers attending RMT picket lines by threatening to cut Unite funding for the Labour Party.

No buses have left depots in Leeds or Wakefield since the Arriva Yorkshire bus workers’ strike over pay began on 6 June. In some areas a few buses have started to run again, but mainly only to transport students to school for exams. Tracey Brabin, the Labour mayor of West Yorkshire, has put on a free shuttle bus to take people from Wakefield to Pinderfields hospital. Workers on the picket lines are angry about her undermining the strike. Pickets outside the depots remain as big as ever. Talks were held between Arriva and the Unite union in the week beginning 13 June, but ended with no...