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Author Topic: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour  (Read 2182 times)

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Metalmicky

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Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« on August 02, 2020, 07:16:51 pm by Metalmicky »
As titled...... after the party decided to pay off former staff who sued it in an anti-Semitism row..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53627533



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BillyStubbsTears

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #1 on August 02, 2020, 07:47:23 pm by BillyStubbsTears »
McCluskey now knows he's not at the to table. And he's doing what all money men do when they lose influence. They use their money to make threats.

His personal influence over the Labour party, from a position that he won with the votes of less than 6% of Unite members was a major contributor to the disaster of December 2019. I hope and expect that Starmer will face him down.

wilts rover

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #2 on August 02, 2020, 08:42:56 pm by wilts rover »
I have been helping out with our customer support team the past three months or so. What you learn pretty quickly is not to take the people who pay you money for granted. They can always find something else to do with it.

And in politics if you start taking your local activists and parties for granted - then offending them if you decide to visit the area - you will find they also have better things to do with their time:

https://leftfootforward.org/2020/07/labour-activist-challenges-keir-starmer-over-snub-to-local-party-during-cornwall-visit/

BillyStubbsTears

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #3 on August 02, 2020, 09:03:29 pm by BillyStubbsTears »
Wilts.

Don't you find it odd that the woman who made that complaint against Starmer makes a point in her Twitter bio of calling herself a "Corbyn supporter"?

https://mobile.twitter.com/jen4truroandfal

drfchound

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #4 on August 02, 2020, 09:03:46 pm by drfchound »
Mmmmm, so not everyone think the sun shines out of the backside of SKS.

wilts rover

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #5 on August 02, 2020, 10:00:44 pm by wilts rover »
Wilts.

Don't you find it odd that the woman who made that complaint against Starmer makes a point in her Twitter bio of calling herself a "Corbyn supporter"?

https://mobile.twitter.com/jen4truroandfal

Billy, I have never found it constructive or useful for a leader to win people over by ignoring them.

wilts rover

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #6 on August 02, 2020, 10:06:18 pm by wilts rover »
Mmmmm, so not everyone think the sun shines out of the backside of SKS.

41% of the public according to the poll out today. Including some regular posters on here no doubt.

So why you would think everyone did is beyond me? Weird.

BillyStubbsTears

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #7 on August 02, 2020, 10:53:43 pm by BillyStubbsTears »
Wilts.

Don't you find it odd that the woman who made that complaint against Starmer makes a point in her Twitter bio of calling herself a "Corbyn supporter"?

https://mobile.twitter.com/jen4truroandfal

Billy, I have never found it constructive or useful for a leader to win people over by ignoring them.

I quite agree. That's why I never understood Corbyn actively pushing the leave line 18 months ago when polls showed that 70-80% of Labour supporters were against it. 


On the current issue, you don't expect a political leader to listen to the precise, personal opinions of everyone in the country do you? Unfortunately, I DO expect a small but vocal proportion of Labour activists to make their dislike of Starmer and their ongoing support of Corbyn an article of faith. I was talking with a friend the other day who is a committed Corbynite. He was insistent that, had Starmer been PM now, he wouldn't have brought in the furlough policy and reflationary Govt spending which I find a quite baffling viewpoint.

As for Hound's comment, I don't do emojis but that one is well worth a facepalm.

Not a comment on Johnson giving peerages to terrorist supporters and people with direct links to the Russian secret services, but straight in with a bizarre comment about Starmer.

drfchound

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #8 on August 03, 2020, 08:26:25 am by drfchound »
Mmmmm, so not everyone think the sun shines out of the backside of SKS.

41% of the public according to the poll out today. Including some regular posters on here no doubt.

So why you would think everyone did is beyond me? Weird.






I was pointing out to people who do (think that the sun shines out of his backside) that not everyone does.
Not saying that I actually do think that everyone does.
That is you putting spin on what I wrote.
But according to the poll that you highlight, then perhaps the majority (59%) don’t think it does.

wilts rover

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #9 on August 03, 2020, 09:14:08 am by wilts rover »
Mmmmm, so not everyone think the sun shines out of the backside of SKS.

41% of the public according to the poll out today. Including some regular posters on here no doubt.

So why you would think everyone did is beyond me? Weird.






I was pointing out to people who do (think that the sun shines out of his backside) that not everyone does.
Not saying that I actually do think that everyone does.
That is you putting spin on what I wrote.
But according to the poll that you highlight, then perhaps the majority (59%) don’t think it does.


Yes that is my bad. I should have acuurately said 62% of the country (in the latest poll).

Thanks for clarifying in your second post that you don't belive everyone thinks (the sun shines out of SKS backside) when you told is in your first post not everyone thinks that.

Which I think only highlights the strangeness of your first comment. Only you know why you posted it. We just read it.

wilts rover

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #10 on August 03, 2020, 09:22:18 am by wilts rover »
Billy, I said on the other thread that SKS should be judged on what he said and did and not what other people say what they think he will do (which actually is pretty much what McCluskey is saying in that interview).

I think he has made an excellent start and he is correct to put clearing out antisemitism on the top of his agenda. But he wont unite the party or build it up by ignoring people.

Glyn_Wigley

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #11 on August 03, 2020, 09:31:16 am by Glyn_Wigley »
Wilts.

Don't you find it odd that the woman who made that complaint against Starmer makes a point in her Twitter bio of calling herself a "Corbyn supporter"?

https://mobile.twitter.com/jen4truroandfal

Billy, I have never found it constructive or useful for a leader to win people over by ignoring them.

McCluskey ignores his own membership and his union's rules. Do you think he's constructive or useful?

selby

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #12 on August 03, 2020, 10:57:29 am by selby »
  The thing that should worry you boys is that like him or loath him McCluskey is another influential labour member who is getting turned off by the present labour stance on things publicly.
  Obviously it doesn't worry you, you see him as old hat, the sort of membership and support the party has been losing for years, and replacing them with middle class revolutionaries spouting nonsense half the time, the best of luck with that.

BillyStubbsTears

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #13 on August 03, 2020, 11:37:44 am by BillyStubbsTears »
Selby.

I think it is vitally important that there is a healthy relationship between Labour and the Unions.

My issue is that I don't think it is healthy for a man who win 5% of Unite members' votes to be in a position to dictate to the Labour party.

drfchound

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #14 on August 03, 2020, 12:22:33 pm by drfchound »
Genuine question BST.
How can he be in charge with only 5% of the union members votes.
Bear in mind I have no knowledge about how that union operates.

BillyStubbsTears

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #15 on August 03, 2020, 12:38:53 pm by BillyStubbsTears »

Hound. No problem. And for the record, I do try to assume that every question is genuine. It'd be a far healthier environment if there were no need to have to emphasise the genuineness of a comment.

There was a 12.2% turnout in the Unite President vote in 2017. He won 45% of that vote. The other two candidates won 42% and 13%.

45% of 12% is 5.5%.

It's rather a farce that he has such power within the Labour movement based on those numbers.

drfchound

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #16 on August 03, 2020, 01:07:00 pm by drfchound »
My uneducated guess was that is was a low turnout.
Maybe if more people had bothered to vote it might have been different eh.
A bit like that other vote.......but that is for a different thread eh. 😉

jonrover

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #17 on August 03, 2020, 06:05:32 pm by jonrover »
Billy...

I'm in a pretty unique position to comment on this topic, working in the Unite Organising and Leverage department.

Firstly, the biggest barrier to new members joining in my 7 years of working for Unite is, without a shadow of doubt, the donations Unite make to the Labour Party (even though members now have to opt in to the political levy), and its pretty high up the list of the reasons people leave. Clearly, this is a massive issue to members and prospective members.

McCluskey is bound by the decisions taken democratically by the lay member Executive Council, and I have heard that there is widespread discontent from the recently elected members with the perceived value for our money we get for funding the Labour Party, concerns raised both after the leaked report in April (I have a copy and its beyond shocking) where there is damning evidence that Labour Party employees redirected funds to shore up safe seats and starved key marginals of funds in 2017, an election Labour were very close to winning with the biggest increase of vote share since 1945, and after paying out Panorama whistle blowers when legal advice suggested the claimants were on serious dodgy ground. I think there is nothing wrong with Len acting on the concerns of the EC, indeed, he'd tell you himself that he would be wrong not to make decisions based on their concerns.

Secondly, having a pop about the fact he was elected by 5% of the membership is a low blow. Unisons last election had a turn out of 9.8% - Prentis got 49.4% of that vote, a share worse than McCluskey. The disgraced Tim Roache was elected on a turn out of 8.5%. Union GS election turnout is a problem across the movement, and to single out McCluskey without providing the full facts of the bigger picture discredits you.

I wouldn't be that worried about the LP finances if Unite do pull back spending; Starmer will probably run to fill the coffers with big business money from the likes of Lord Sainsbury, just like Blair did.

Glyn_Wigley

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #18 on August 03, 2020, 06:12:59 pm by Glyn_Wigley »
Billy...

I'm in a pretty unique position to comment on this topic, working in the Unite Organising and Leverage department.

Firstly, the biggest barrier to new members joining in my 7 years of working for Unite is, without a shadow of doubt, the donations Unite make to the Labour Party (even though members now have to opt in to the political levy), and its pretty high up the list of the reasons people leave. Clearly, this is a massive issue to members and prospective members.

McCluskey is bound by the decisions taken democratically by the lay member Executive Council, and I have heard that there is widespread discontent from the recently elected members with the perceived value for our money we get for funding the Labour Party, concerns raised both after the leaked report in April (I have a copy and its beyond shocking) where there is damning evidence that Labour Party employees redirected funds to shore up safe seats and starved key marginals of funds in 2017, an election Labour were very close to winning with the biggest increase of vote share since 1945, and after paying out Panorama whistle blowers when legal advice suggested the claimants were on serious dodgy ground. I think there is nothing wrong with Len acting on the concerns of the EC, indeed, he'd tell you himself that he would be wrong not to make decisions based on their concerns.

Secondly, having a pop about the fact he was elected by 5% of the membership is a low blow. Unisons last election had a turn out of 9.8% - Prentis got 49.4% of that vote, a share worse than McCluskey. The disgraced Tim Roache was elected on a turn out of 8.5%. Union GS election turnout is a problem across the movement, and to single out McCluskey without providing the full facts of the bigger picture discredits you.

I wouldn't be that worried about the LP finances if Unite do pull back spending; Starmer will probably run to fill the coffers with big business money from the likes of Lord Sainsbury, just like Blair did.

What do you make of McCluskey and his cronies antidemocratic antics that have been covered for several years in Private Eye?

drfchound

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #19 on August 03, 2020, 06:18:00 pm by drfchound »
Billy...

I'm in a pretty unique position to comment on this topic, working in the Unite Organising and Leverage department.

Firstly, the biggest barrier to new members joining in my 7 years of working for Unite is, without a shadow of doubt, the donations Unite make to the Labour Party (even though members now have to opt in to the political levy), and its pretty high up the list of the reasons people leave. Clearly, this is a massive issue to members and prospective members.

McCluskey is bound by the decisions taken democratically by the lay member Executive Council, and I have heard that there is widespread discontent from the recently elected members with the perceived value for our money we get for funding the Labour Party, concerns raised both after the leaked report in April (I have a copy and its beyond shocking) where there is damning evidence that Labour Party employees redirected funds to shore up safe seats and starved key marginals of funds in 2017, an election Labour were very close to winning with the biggest increase of vote share since 1945, and after paying out Panorama whistle blowers when legal advice suggested the claimants were on serious dodgy ground. I think there is nothing wrong with Len acting on the concerns of the EC, indeed, he'd tell you himself that he would be wrong not to make decisions based on their concerns.

Secondly, having a pop about the fact he was elected by 5% of the membership is a low blow. Unisons last election had a turn out of 9.8% - Prentis got 49.4% of that vote, a share worse than McCluskey. The disgraced Tim Roache was elected on a turn out of 8.5%. Union GS election turnout is a problem across the movement, and to single out McCluskey without providing the full facts of the bigger picture discredits you.

I wouldn't be that worried about the LP finances if Unite do pull back spending; Starmer will probably run to fill the coffers with big business money from the likes of Lord Sainsbury, just like Blair did.






Once again it is good to read a first hand quantified opinion.

Filo

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #20 on August 03, 2020, 06:20:52 pm by Filo »
Billy...

I'm in a pretty unique position to comment on this topic, working in the Unite Organising and Leverage department.

Firstly, the biggest barrier to new members joining in my 7 years of working for Unite is, without a shadow of doubt, the donations Unite make to the Labour Party (even though members now have to opt in to the political levy), and its pretty high up the list of the reasons people leave. Clearly, this is a massive issue to members and prospective members.

McCluskey is bound by the decisions taken democratically by the lay member Executive Council, and I have heard that there is widespread discontent from the recently elected members with the perceived value for our money we get for funding the Labour Party, concerns raised both after the leaked report in April (I have a copy and its beyond shocking) where there is damning evidence that Labour Party employees redirected funds to shore up safe seats and starved key marginals of funds in 2017, an election Labour were very close to winning with the biggest increase of vote share since 1945, and after paying out Panorama whistle blowers when legal advice suggested the claimants were on serious dodgy ground. I think there is nothing wrong with Len acting on the concerns of the EC, indeed, he'd tell you himself that he would be wrong not to make decisions based on their concerns.

Secondly, having a pop about the fact he was elected by 5% of the membership is a low blow. Unisons last election had a turn out of 9.8% - Prentis got 49.4% of that vote, a share worse than McCluskey. The disgraced Tim Roache was elected on a turn out of 8.5%. Union GS election turnout is a problem across the movement, and to single out McCluskey without providing the full facts of the bigger picture discredits you.

I wouldn't be that worried about the LP finances if Unite do pull back spending; Starmer will probably run to fill the coffers with big business money from the likes of Lord Sainsbury, just like Blair did.

So, he wants to withdraw funding on things that happened on Corbyn’s watch, I was of the impression Corbyn was his man, I just struggle to understand why this threat was n’t made when Corbyn was in his pocket

jonrover

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #21 on August 03, 2020, 06:55:24 pm by jonrover »
Billy...

I'm in a pretty unique position to comment on this topic, working in the Unite Organising and Leverage department.

Firstly, the biggest barrier to new members joining in my 7 years of working for Unite is, without a shadow of doubt, the donations Unite make to the Labour Party (even though members now have to opt in to the political levy), and its pretty high up the list of the reasons people leave. Clearly, this is a massive issue to members and prospective members.

McCluskey is bound by the decisions taken democratically by the lay member Executive Council, and I have heard that there is widespread discontent from the recently elected members with the perceived value for our money we get for funding the Labour Party, concerns raised both after the leaked report in April (I have a copy and its beyond shocking) where there is damning evidence that Labour Party employees redirected funds to shore up safe seats and starved key marginals of funds in 2017, an election Labour were very close to winning with the biggest increase of vote share since 1945, and after paying out Panorama whistle blowers when legal advice suggested the claimants were on serious dodgy ground. I think there is nothing wrong with Len acting on the concerns of the EC, indeed, he'd tell you himself that he would be wrong not to make decisions based on their concerns.

Secondly, having a pop about the fact he was elected by 5% of the membership is a low blow. Unisons last election had a turn out of 9.8% - Prentis got 49.4% of that vote, a share worse than McCluskey. The disgraced Tim Roache was elected on a turn out of 8.5%. Union GS election turnout is a problem across the movement, and to single out McCluskey without providing the full facts of the bigger picture discredits you.

I wouldn't be that worried about the LP finances if Unite do pull back spending; Starmer will probably run to fill the coffers with big business money from the likes of Lord Sainsbury, just like Blair did.

What do you make of McCluskey and his cronies antidemocratic antics that have been covered for several years in Private Eye?

No idea what you're talking about?

Glyn_Wigley

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #22 on August 03, 2020, 07:31:48 pm by Glyn_Wigley »
I'm sure you haven't.

jonrover

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #23 on August 03, 2020, 07:35:28 pm by jonrover »
I'm sure you haven't.

Since I don't read Private Eye, I really haven't! Post some links to the articles in question and I'll see if I can make comment.


Glyn_Wigley

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #24 on August 03, 2020, 07:38:19 pm by Glyn_Wigley »
I'm sure you haven't.

Since I don't read Private Eye, I really haven't! Post some links to the articles in question and I'll see if I can make comment.



This is the one in the current issue. Do you think he's using the money Unite gets from it members - supposedly to be used for the benefit it's members - properly?

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/issue-1450/hp-sauce

Glyn_Wigley

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #25 on August 03, 2020, 07:49:10 pm by Glyn_Wigley »
"UNITE OF THE LONG KNIVES

The Marxist leadership of Unite won't say why it is threatening to purge Gereard Coyne after he dared to stand against Len McCluskey in the contest to become the union's general secretary.

The Eye can reveal what anyone who hans around the far left may have guessed: it's about Jews.

When the campaign was at its height in April, Coyne condemned Labour for failing to expel Ken Livingstone. Red Ken's insistence that Hitler was a Zionist "was an affront to the six million Jews in the Holocaust", Coyne told BBC1's Question Time. As Diane Abbott scowled at him, Coyne added: "In the Labour party and the Labour movement there is an issue about anitisemitism."

He learned of it first hand when he gave an interview to a Jewish newspaper and received antisemitic hate mail. Asked later about the behaviour of Russell Cartwright and Brenda Warrington, Unite'e members on Labour's disciplinary panel, Coyne said: "I am ashamed that representatives of my union were allegedly arguing against having any hearing at all."

That was enough for Unite's political officer, Andrew Murray, who suspended Coyne.The private charges accuse him of brining the union into disrepute for suggesting that Cartwright and Warrington participated in a whitewash. For good measure, Murray also said Coyne's decision to tell Unite members that McCluskey had taken £400,000 of their money to help him buy a flat in London's Borough Market was also a disciplinary matter. (The Eye understands that a Coyne leaflet showing Moneybags McCluskey giving his members the finger has caused particular offence.)

Murray was all set to proceed when Jeremy Corbyn's aide Seems Milne called him in to help run Labour's general election campaign. Murray was a natural recruit to the new-look Labour party. He served on the executive of the Communist Party of Britain and of Corbyn's Stop the war coalition. He praised North Korea as "People's Korea" and said that although Stalin imposed some "harsh measures, we are all Stalinists" in the fight against imperialism.

Like Milne. Murray was a member of "Straight Left', an obscure pro-Soviet "tank" faction formed in the late 1970s to argue against the Communist party accepting democracy and abandoning its support for dictatorships. Also like Milne, Murray is well bred (see below) - but will his noble breeding be enough to "keep him from putting Coyne on the dole?"

jonrover

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #26 on August 03, 2020, 08:04:57 pm by jonrover »
I obviously can't comment on the live legal on goings, but I'd assume the legal action will have been signed off by the lay member EC or a financial and general purposes sub committee of the EC. That is how our union works.

Regarding Gerard Coyne. He had his day in an Employment Tribunal and lost.

End of discussion.

BillyStubbsTears

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #27 on August 03, 2020, 11:37:17 pm by BillyStubbsTears »
Jon

I wasn't attempting to misrepresent the issue about Unite's GS election turnout. I fully agree that turnout throughout the unions is a big problem.

I agree with you that the other union leaders have no stronger a democratic mandate. My issue is that none of them has the power over the Labour party and the willingness to use it against a leader elected on a far stronger mandate, that McCluskey has.

I have no wish to get into a sectarian fight about the direction of the party, other than to say that, for all his manifest faults, I would always prefer a situation with Blair in No10 and Hague/IDS/Howard in opposition, than one with May/Johnson in No10 and Corbyn in opposition. I'm not sure that position is shared by the far Left of the party.

BillyStubbsTears

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #28 on August 04, 2020, 01:26:16 am by BillyStubbsTears »
The problem with Union democracy is that most members are utterly disconnected from the internal politicking in unions. Union members generally want membership as an insurance policy - that there'll be someone on their side against the bosses in pay and conditions and job threats scenarios. They are less interested in the political stance of the union.

I think that is unfortunate, as I think there is a desperate need for the working classes to have collective political power and influence. One of the very destructive aspects of the Thatcher/Reagan revolution was that, by breaking the Unions as political forces, they cut one of the key restraints on company owners and managers doing more or less what they want. And what they have wanted to do more than anything is to keep pay down and syphon off more money into their own pockets. So we have stumbled into a situation where we have a higher inequality of wealth, and a more unequal share of economic growth than at any time since the Great Depression.

To address this, we badly need strong unions who can hold out for the interests of their members. And I wish that union members would see this and engage in electing politically canny leaders, rather than idealistic revolutionaries.

BigH

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Re: Unite threatens to review donations to Labour
« Reply #29 on August 07, 2020, 08:02:18 am by BigH »
In this regard, McCluskey's record as union leader has been truly shocking.

I can't recall one major dispute under his leadership that Unite have won. Yes, there's been the odd improvement in overtime rates here or a restoration of a daily payment there but, by and large, employers have trampled all over the Unite membership over the past 10 years.

And where's Len been? Mostly indulging in personal vanity projects. Like getting Miliband elected as leader, ditto Corbyn, trying to get Long Bailey elected, getting involved in the antisemitism row and, the latest, threatening bully boy tactics over Labour Party funding.

To the Unite membership he's been a waste of space. To the Labour Party he's been a liability. To the Conservative Party he's been the gift thats kept on giving.



« Last Edit: August 07, 2020, 08:25:59 am by BigH »

 

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