Sharon Graham’s election as head of Unite shows workers facing new forms of exploitation need strong, diverse unions
That the election of Sharon Graham as Unite’s new general secretary this week took many by surprise says much about today’s union movement and its place in society. At the contest’s outset, many on Unite’s left threw their weight behind one of three white male candidates, accusing Graham of splitting the vote. Throughout the course of the race to replace Len McCluskey, few in the legacy media provided any analysis beyond the election’s implication for the Labour party and Keir Starmer’s leadership; the future of workers’ rights became a sideshow. And as the results trickled in, bemused commentators struggled to understand where the support had come from.
The answer they sought was in the union’s grassroots: ordinary Unite members in workplaces across the country who cared less about Labour party infighting and more about feeding their families, being treated with respect at work, and feeling as if their voices mattered. Labour party insiders, political commentators and opposition candidates might have been blindsided by the election of Unite’s first ever female general secretary on a manifesto of workplace organising, renewed democracy and grassroots power, but rank and file members were not. It’s a lesson Britain’s union movement as a whole must learn if it is to rebuild and thrive.