Unite boss Graham accused of creating ‘ghost’ job to protect allies from election challenge

According to a Unite whistleblower, the union’s general secretary Sharon Graham or her management team created a cushy, fake, ‘ghost’ job to incentivise a worker not to stand for election to the union’s executive council against a Graham ally.

Sharon Graham: what now?

The Heathrow airport baggage ­handler was given a role, with a substantial salary, with Unite  but didn’t require him to ever attend the union’s office – nor did he ever do so – according to the insider, allowing him also to keep his existing full-time ‘day job’ working as ground staff for a major airline.

According to the whistleblower, the ‘ghost worker ‘ is unknown to supposed ‘colleagues’ and appears not to have done any work – but withdrew from the executive election at around the same time as accepting the ‘job’. The whistleblower’s report claims that the two things were directly linked.

Unite claims it has ‘launched an investigation; into the allegations, but already dismissed the whistleblower’s claims of election rigging as “categorically false”. The baggage handler, who no longer has the ‘ghost’ position, also denied any wrongdoing.

During Sharon Graham’s tenure as general secretary of Unite – which goes to a member ballot again next year and for which she already appears to be electioneering – she has been constantly surrounded by allegations of abuse and anti-union behaviour and her lawyers have made one explosive admission.

An ongoing dispute

Bargaining and Dispute Support Unit (BDSU) staff have been in dispute with the union and her husband Jack Clarke over alleged bullying and abuse by Clarke and his allies – far from the first such allegations against Clarke – and have accused Graham and her management team of employing intimidation, suspension and anti-union tactics against the staff in the dispute, outraging Unite’s National Industrial Sector Committee (NISC) for the print and graphics centre and the leaders of two unions representing Unite staff and officers.

So bad has this alleged conduct been that more than 90% of Unite staff working at the union’s Holborn HQ voted for strike action. Three – some say four – of the five women who worked in Clarke’s department since Graham formed it and put him in charge of it have left it, with union sources saying that they also alleged bullying and abuse. The Unite union staff branch unanimously condemned Unite’s abuse of its staff and the influential Officers National Committee (ONC) has accused Graham of using Murdoch-esque anti-union tactics against workers and against Unite officers trying to unionise and take collective action.

On the executive council, Graham’s allies used expensive lawyers and legal process to block the removal of the chair – a Graham factionalist whose handling of key issues led to him losing the confidence of many ‘exec’ members – a tactic the union has used repeatedly, at huge cost to members.

Exec member Eddie Cassidy said:

If what has been alleged in this whistleblower ­letter is true, then there are elements that I feel have to be investigated by the police.”

It is a criminal offence to give or receive bribes, with penalties of up to 10 years’ imprisonment and unlimited fines or unlimited fines.

Featured image via the Canary