Len McCluskey retires next year. What should his successor do?

I used to be a member of the union Unite. I signed up because I believe in the value of collectivism and, having done an internet search, I felt that Unite were best placed to represent me in my small (6 people) workplace.

Two years after I got my job, my six person workplace had been bought and consumed into a much bigger entity. I was in now a mid-sized, non-organised, private sector workplace and I was going through a reorganisation process I was pretty sure would end up with me losing my job. So I called the union I was paying a not insignificant amount of money to every month, to ask for some representation in the meetings. “Sorry, we don’t do that,” was the answer.

“Sorry, we don’t do that,” should be on the tombstone of the current incarnation of Unite.

I know that in some large workplaces they are very good at organising and getting reasonable pay and conditions for workers. And that has been really important. But as we increasingly become a country that doesn’t work in easy, manageable businesses, Unite has largely failed to adapt. Instead, Unite’s public persona in the guise of Len McCluskey, is formed of tough, 1970s-style union boss rhetoric, but without the actual muscle to back it up. And it is rarely aimed at the government. Instead it is all aimed at influencing the internal politics of the Labour Party.

Unite did not back Keir Starmer for the leadership and instead supported Rebecca Long-Bailey, with Richard Burgon as deputy leader. But here’s the thing. Unite members had no say in that choice. It was decided by the union’s Executive Council not the membership. And in the recent past, the membership has diverged significantly from the public positions adopted by both Unite and McCluskey.

Unite has now made the decision to cut its funding to Labour by disaffiliating 10 per cent of their current numbers. They are within their rights to do this — but it is odd.

The Unite leadership is apparently frustrated with Starmer’s leadership and the way in which the party’s money is being spent. McCluskey has been open about his view that Labour should not have reached a financial settlement with the whistleblowers who appeared in the BBC Panorama documentary on anti-Semitism in the Labour party.

I disagree with McCluskey on that and I think Starmer has — so far — done a pretty good job. McCluskey can have whatever opinion he wants, but I do worry about how representative it is of the broad view of Unite’s membership. I also worry about the ability of Unite members to disagree with him.

Internal union elections have very low turnout numbers. Most people don’t join a union to get involved in its politics but to get the vital protections in the workplace they need. Unions are right to take campaigning for these protections beyond the workplace and into the political sphere. But it is also right to ask if they are doing so effectively and efficiently.

Len McCluskey has never served under a Labour government. The Labour Party has been out of office during his time as General Secretary. For all his bluster, he has not yet managed to help the Labour Party achieve power. At the same time his union has lost members and, with that, clout. He has come to embody all the worst clichés about union bosses — and he seems to enjoy it.

That is a shame. Because the union movement is important. It has made vital changes to the way we work and live. It is essential to a democracy that we have unions and that they are well run.

Len McCluskey is retiring next year and the race to replace him is already on. I hope that whoever takes on this role, does so with the interests of their members at the heart of everything they do. This contest is too often seen through the factional lens of Labour politics. But what I want to see from McCluskey’s replacement is a union that, when one of its members asks for help, says “yes, we do that”.