The witchhunt

Four union activists take their own union to tribunal:

Lousy news from the trade union front, people: the New Labour-loving horrors who run the public sector union Unison have stepped up their campaign to purge their Labour affiliated union of all grassroots socialists and leftwing activists. We on the left are not pleased.

The union has just banned four of its best grassroots activists - Glenn Kelly (Bromley Unison branch secretary), Suzanne Muna (Unison's Tenant Services Authority branch secretary), Onay Kasab (Greenwich Unison branch secretary) and Brian Debus (Hackney Unison chair) - from union office for three (Kelly and Kasab), four (Muna) and five (Debus) years. 

And their crime? - well, that depends on who you ask, and how highly that person thinks of Labour. I'm one of the many who believe that Kelly, Kasab, Muna and Debus are being strongarmed out of Unison because they are Socialist party members (and NOT racists - you'll read more on that offensive and ridiculous charge below). They are passionate critics of New Labour, passionately opposed to this government's privatising of public services, and - and this is doubtless the kicker, as far as Unison's New Labour lubbers are concerned - galvanising grassroots enthusiasm for Unison to break its formal funding ties with Labour.

The Socialist Party has long held that Unison ought to cut the Labour party loose - and that's a line that is making sense to more union members than, I imagine, Unison cares to see. The government's war in Iraq, various doomed love-ins with big business, privatising of public services, and failure to repeal this country's draconian anti trade union laws have stirred a poisonous - and possibly permanent - loathing for this Labour government in the average union member.

The likes of Kelly, Muna, Kasab and Debus (and SWP members Yunus Bakhsh and Tony Staunton, who Unison has already expelled) do not strike one as maniacal, ranting, far-left duffers - they're widely written and spoken of as the real grassroots deal, who were on the money all along (hundreds of people regularly turn up to rallies organised in their defence: messages of support for activists from the likes of Rory Bremner and Mark Thomas are quoted on the Stop the Witchhunt site).

It is not difficult to imagine that leaders of Labour-affiliated unions are all too aware that anti-Labour activists might find a large audience among restless union members during a recession - and of the damage that union members could do to Labour if they decided on a summer of discontent. The last thing union leaders and Gordon need is a bunch of long-hairs talking thousands of disgruntled union members into a year of strikes and demonstrations - and into storming Unison's plush offices to demand that the union stop shelling out, and selling out, to Labour.

That's my two cents.

The official line, of course, would lead us elsewhere. The charge that Kelly, Muna, Kasab and Debus are going down for is - I trust my notes are correct - racism, and pulling a fast one with a photocopier.

The four and another activist called Matthew Waterfall produced a pamphlet in 2007 to advertise a Unison refusal to debate contentious subjects like the union's continued funding of Labour, the election of Unison officials, and the right of branches to initiate strike ballots at Unison's national conference that year. The pamphlet featured a drawing of the well-known hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil monkey sequence, to illustrate Unison's closed approach to open debate.

To the horror of the five activists, the picture suddenly drew - out of the blue - a formal complaint of racism (the chair of conference's Standing Orders Committee - the committee at which the four were directing the criticism about the reluctance to allow debate - was black).

Things became very messy after that: the four argued bitterly that they meant no offense and that the complaint was politically motivated, while others felt they ought to be pulled up if they'd caused - even if inadvertently - upset or harm. 

Allegations of racism and/or of racist offence of course must be addressed: point is, were these allegations the reason the four were pursued? 'You can imagine how it felt walking round conference with everybody knowing you'd been accused of racism,' a despondent Muna told me not long after the event. Kasab, a man of Turk-Cypriot descent who is much admired in union circles for his work against the BNP, and in winning a major single status battle and payouts for low paid workers at Greenwich council, was particularly aggrieved. All four told me they firmly believed the union was targeting them because of their politics - a point that Unison appeared to confirm beyond doubt when it dropped all charges against Waterfall, the only one of the five who wasn't a member of the Socialist Party. It is notable, too, that Unison handed out such heavy punishments to the four - the bans from office will essentially end the careers (and possibly the branches) of a group of fine grassroots activists who have spent years representing the low paid and vulnerable, and fighting for workers' rights. 

This week, the four take Unison to employment tribunal, on the grounds that Unison has gone after them because of their political beliefs. Which is a compelling turn - it's not every day union members take their own union to tribunal. Sometimes, I wonder where this crushing of Labour party critics will end, and exactly how messy the end will look.

The tribunal hearings start on August 10.