The campaign for Unite’s General Secretary election is now underway, with the current General Secretary seeking re-election Sharon Graham, facing Simon Dubbins, Unite’s Director of International and Research. Unfortunately, no rank-and-file candidate is standing in the election. Both Graham and Dubbins have spent their careers within the Unite bureaucracy.
The choice between Sharon Graham and Simon Dubbins is not simply about personalities, nor is it a straightforward contest between left and right. It is a debate about the future direction, priorities and culture of Britain’s second largest trade union, and about Unite’s relationship with the British Labour Party.
Sharon Graham’s successful 2021 campaign was built around a commitment to return Unite’s focus to workplace organising and away from Westminster politics. Her current campaign argues that this approach has delivered results and should continue. Graham points to Unite’s involvement in hundreds of disputes, securing better pay, improved conditions and stronger protections for members through industrial action and collective bargaining. Her campaign claims that since taking office the union has been involved in over 1,800 disputes involving 280,000 members, winning more than £700 million for workers.
However, Graham’s promise to move away from Westminster politics has, in practice, coincided with a deterioration of political campaigning more broadly. Unite has failed to take a leading role on issues such as Palestine, climate change, the war in Iran. In fact she has openly criticised the government for not spending enough on military spending. Graham justifies these positions by claiming they protect jobs.
Graham’s ‘Jobs First’ approach has been particularly evident in her response to the war in Gaza. She has condemned protests outside arms factories linked to producing components used on the F35 which has been sold by the US to Israel and used in the Gaza genocide. Graham has weakened Unite’s relationship with the anti-war movement, claiming that it threatens members’ jobs. In the context of a genocide, such a position is indefensible.
Simon Dubbins is standing as the candidate of the Members United grouping. Members United is a new platform, bringing the old right-wing and the United Left faction that backed Len McCluskey together.
Dubbins himself is a trade union bureaucrat with no historical links with Unite’s left. As head of Unite’s international department, he has placed significant emphasis on international solidarity, particularly with Palestine, and supports a just transition to address climate change. This has led some to believe that he represents a more radical left alternative, but in reality this is not the case.
From this perspective, while Dubbins takes stronger positions on issues such as Palestine and climate change, his loyalty to Labour makes those positions almost meaningless. Continuing to support the Labour Party while it attacks workers, promotes privatisation and backs military interventions means his leadership would be little different to Len McCluskey Part 2, talking big but delivering little, and seeing Unite as an adviser to the Labour Party. Telling also is Dubbins faction's criticism of Graham for spending the Unite's strike fund!
If you need only one reason to back Graham then surely it would be wholeheartedly backing workers taking action.
Despite Sharon Graham’s weaknesses, her commitment to workplace organising and industrial struggle is the better option for developing a layer of trade unionists who feel confident to organise at work.
For these reasons People Before Profit is calling on our members in Unite to campaign in their workplaces for critical support for Sharon Graham in the General Secretary election.