Trade union firebrand Sharon Graham has told Sky News Sir Keir Starmer only has a year to recover from Labour’s disastrous slump and said her union, Unite, may stop bankrolling the party if it doesn’t start backing workers.
Speaking to Sky News as the TUC conference began in Brighton, the Unite leader said parts of the government’s workers’ rights legislation were now a “burnt-out shell” and her members would feel duped unless Labour stuck to its manifesto promises.
In recent years, Unite has been one of Labour ‘s biggest backers, handing its previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn around £3m to fight the 2019 general election under Ms Graham’s left-wing predecessor, “Red Len” McCluskey.
Since succeeding Mr McCluskey in 2021, Ms Graham has said there will be no “blank cheque” for the party, yet the union’s affiliation fees to Labour are currently £1.4 million a year.
In a thinly-veiled threat to stop bankrolling Labour, she told Sky News: “What they need to do is to be Labour. People were crying for them to get in, wanting them to get in. I wanted them to get in, but they’re not doing the things we thought they would do.
“Winter fuel [payments], how did that happen? They’re not backing workers. Grangemouth and Lindsey [oil] refineries look like they’re going to close. Not backing council workers, cost of living crisis, a 38% increase in food since 2021. People need Labour to be Labour so they can relieve the pressure that’s on them.
“We are affiliated to Labour, but it’s harder and harder to justify that if they’re not backing workers. We’re a trade union. I am general secretary of a trade union that backs workers. I expect Labour to back workers.
“If they don’t, then our members will make the decision. It’s them who make the decisions and they may decide not to be affiliated to Labour for that reason.”
Condemning changes to the Employment Rights Bill, Ms Graham said: “What the government has done is amend its own legislation. They’ve done their own amendment to make it easier to fire and rehire council workers and public sector workers.
“And so for me, there is no ban. And that is a huge watering down of what they said they would do. If they keep chipping away themselves and allow others to chip it away, it’s going to be something that’s not worth the paper that it’s written on.
“We need to go back to what we said we would do, which was to put in some clear employment rights for workers to give them a better deal at work. If they don’t do that, then workers are going to feel duped.
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“We were told there would be a ban on fire and rehire. We’ve been told there will be a ban on zero-hour contracts. Those two things are not true. What the government needs to do is to put this bill back where it was to make sure that it’s worth something, that it’s not a paper tiger in the end.”
Claiming the prime minister has a year to get his policies right or lose votes to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, Ms Graham said: “Already some of the damage is done from when the winter fuel cuts came in. Some people will not forgive them for that.
“But when you’ve got council workers either losing their jobs or having their pay pushed down, they’re looking at Labour and saying ‘What are you doing?’ They’re not going to hold on forever. They will turn somewhere else unless Labour do something differently.
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“What they need to do is deliver for workers, because that’s what they promised. We’re affiliated to Labour because they’re supposed to be the voice of workers. That’s what we’re asking them to do. Stop shilly-shallying.”
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In July, Unite members voted at a conference to suspend Angela Rayner’s membership over her role in the Birmingham bin strike row when she was housing and local government secretary.
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Asked about her resignation from government and as Labour deputy leader, Ms Graham said: “Angela was in charge of the department when we’ve had this debacle about Birmingham City Council workers who were losing up to £8,000 a year in pay.
“Why are workers in councils paying for [the] incompetence of councils and council debt? It’s not acceptable.”
And asked to name her preferred candidate for deputy leader, she said: “I’ve been around long enough to know it’s not what people say, it’s what they do. I’m going to be looking very much at their track record. Have they backed workers? That’s what I’ll be looking for.”
