Future of Progressive Politics

Am I tough enough? A strong and stable leadership? Total rubre. Hell yes, I'm tough enough. Shut Fidge. Not another one. It's the politics show cast Simon Dubbins, Director of U International, the United Union, candidate for General Secretary of the United Union. Welcome to Policics Echn Thank you very much for having me So you're running against the incumbent Shan Graham who's been the General Secretary since twenty twenty one. Do you want to give a spee The reason why you're running Yeah, sure. I think there's quite a widespread feeling in the Union that we've lost our way, lost our direction industrially, politically and as an organization. So We really are standing on a platform of a fresh start, a new start, and we want to move the union back to where we think it should be I'd love to dive into that more. but I think for people who might not be familiar with Unite and who you represent, I'd love if you could speak a bit about that. And also I think what you view the role of unions being in wider politics and society just now, because for a lot of people, they're not members of unions anymore, Union membership has dropped quite drastically since the nineties so I'd wonder if you'd a bit about that Sure, we're a union with about one point two million members. It's probably around just over two hundred thousand of those are retired members and around about a million that are full paying working subs pay members. We divided into about twenty, twenty one different sectors and ten regions, including the island of Ireland, both the North and in the Republic as well the sectors vary really widely. We've got a chunk of manufacturing sectors, about three hundred thousand or members cover everything from steel to oil and gas to auto manufacturing to aerospace, graphical paper media We've got some public sectors, about one hundred thousand in the health sector, and I think it's about ninety thousand or so in local authorities And of course, we've got civil aviation, road transport, passenger transport, docks and rail maintenance as well. So It really is a very broad organisation. In some ways, it's almost like a mini TUC within the TUC. and obviously there are quite different interests amongst those membership groups sometimes We also I should mention have members in Gibraltar aboutb five thousand, which is, you know really important but brings with it its own dynamic and own issues as well. It's interesting you mention Gibalta, S your or Director of International at the moment. for those that don't know what an international director does at a trade union. What does your day to day look like? What do you look after Well, it's really varied. I mean, the vast majority and vast majority of what we do and the focus is on industrial issues. So if you think of all the sectors I've just mentioned guess about sixty seventy percent of Unite's membership are working in multinational companies. We've got members in BMW, Nissan, Toyota, General Electric, Siemens, IAG, you name it, They're multinational companies. So The real focus is on bringing together shop stewards and officers in multinational companies with their counterparts from other countries and trying to build solidarity across borders. It's really important that we do that and it has brought some very concrete results. I can name several examples where we've managed to resolve putes Trelburg for example, is a Swedish own company in the building materials sector We used and got help from the Sedish Sing in to resolve get the pay increases we wanted and resolve the dispute there GE we've had help from our French and other European counterparts to assist with a dispute that was running there and get the resolution we needed And just more broadly, companies like BMW, for example The next model, the electric vehicle is going to be crucial. and we've got four thousand members in the Cowy site. That decision is going to be taken in Munich, not in the UK. So we have to be working with our sister unions to affect the decisions made in the boardroom to protect our members and that you can multiply across NissAN, Toyota and all the other companies that I've mentioned There is also the relationships we have with sister unions. We look after and you know make sure that we keep close with them. And of course, there are the solidarity issues such as Palestine or the Kurdish people and in the past it would have been with South Africa again the struggle against apartheid and so on. So it's quite a very broad, broad range and all of the politics that goes with it as well. And historically, Unite and unions in general have been very influential within the Labour movevement and specifically the Labour Party. And I was wondering if you could talk a bit about how you view Unite's current relationship with the Labour Party. and perhaps this touches on your leadership vid, how you would change that relationship So look, I think of course we are affiliated to Labour Party. I think we're still the single biggest affiliate of the Labour Party despite the cuts and decisions that have recently been taken I think In terms of the current labour government, there is a huge amount of frustration amongst our membership and you know amongst labour voters as well I think it was an extremely bad decision of the government to get into attacking pensioners winter fuel payments, disability payments and so on So that has obviously brought a huge amount of frustration and anger. That said, the emmployment Rights bill is obviously a major step forward. There's some frustration again that parts of it had been watered down. We will certainly be calling for a secondecond Employment Rights Act to address some of those shortcomings But in terms of the union's position now and my position I think there has been a move towards disengagement. There is a whole discussion going on about disaffiliation. I think that is much more stronger in unite than it is in other unions. We've just seen the Fire Brigadade Union, which is a good, historically very left union, have voted to remain in the Labour Party. And I'm not aware that the other unions are having quite the depths of discussion we are Whatever happens, a rules conference will take that decision in twenty twenty seven, The members will take that decision. In the meantime, in the previous years, the real problem we've got is we've disengaged. For example, a group of MPs in Parliament, my understanding is they have not had a single meeting since the current General Secretary came took office in twenty twenty one The political department of the Union has been massively reduced. I think there's only a couple of people who are in it now. It used to be a much bigger operation. And I think there's frustrations with how some of the regional committees have not really been functioned punching their weight And there's a feeling that the current General Secretary has adopted an empty chair strategy and it hass been kind of missing in action now That's a problem because Our members need us to have a political voice. know we've got a crisis in the car industry at the moment. You've got all of the issues around just transition, the North Sea investment in public services, everything. We need to be in there. Now if Unite is not present and that is what's been happening in the last few years You end up leaving a vacuum And if we're frustrated that the part is moved too far to the right I think we are to a large extent, or we certainly haven't helped in creating that vacuum space We've also there's a strong feeling we've withdrawn from cooperating with the wider trrade Union movement. Now we need to do that within Chulo and the other affiliated unions and punch our weight properly. So we're right being angry, but what are we doing to actually actively try and change that? So I think that's something where we need to change direction Do you think that empty chair strategy and the wider political strategy of the current General Secretary? has allowed, you sort of hinted at it, people like Steve Reee, people like Liz Kendall, people like Peter Kyle, towards the right of the Parliamentary Labour Party to have a bit more control over the agenda, especially when it came to watering down the Employment Rights Act at the last minute going from day one rights to it day thirty, I can't remember what right it ended up being. Do you think that vacuum has been caused by that strategy. I certainly think it hasn't helped, deffinitely. Look, UnI is one of the biggest trade unions and UK trade union movement. I think Unison is slightly more numbers wise at the moment But we've always been seen is the trunk of the left, so to speak, many of the other unions like as left CW and you know the more left progressive unions, historically Unite has always worked with them to push the most progressive agenda we can within the Labour Party So I do think us stepping away from that and pulling back from wider engagement in the broader trade Union movement And the way that that then has played out within the Labour Party has without a doubt, in my view, certainly facilitated and made it easier for the write to capture the by I went up and spoke to some of the bin workers who were striking during the Birmingham Bin strikes, and I met a couple of them who told me that they were considering voting for reform I wonder, do you think that part of the shyingway of the current General Secretary from being heavily involved with Labour Party politics is because she's aware that perhaps the membership is straying from Labour Party politics And also, what is your argument to members who might be looking towards reform I certainly think it's a fair question, in my own opinion personally is that that has played a big role and there's no doubt that there are chunks of our membership anger and their frustration for all sorts of reasons. playing its way out with a drift towards reform. My thoughts are the current genereral seecretary is probably very well aware of that and doesn't want to offffend them, particularly with an election looming I think I've made my position on it all very, very clear. I don't think as trade unionists and part of the Labour movement that we can ever, ever be ambiguous about reform or any other far right movement. Now let's be clear. Reform voted against and opposed every single measure in the Employment Rights Act rights that would enhance the position of trade union members and give them more influence in the workplace and so on They've pledged or made it clear they want to repeal the Equalities Act to twenty ten one, which you know gives equal treatment provisions to women disabled, LGBT, ethnic minorities and so on they are currently in control of twenty two local authorities. And they are clearly wanting to cut jobs. I think they've made it a pledge. They want to get rid of ten percent of jobs. And they have it in mind to attack public sector pensions in local authorities. Now If you're a trade union and people are paying their subs for more protection and rights at work to protect their living standards It is simply incompatible to be of paying your subs and want your union to perform and protect you whilst at the same time voting for reform who is clearly pledged to attack us industrially and attack our rights. So I've been very clear there are No compromises with reform or any far right party. they've always been the enemy of working people in unions. Looking at your international experience, I've se you do a lot work with American Trade Union And You've had a kind phenomenon over there where a lot of trade union members have sp Trump and MAGA, especially in this last presidential election Loo at the way the USW, UAW, teamsters have reacted to this. what lessons do you think you can take from that experience if you were to become General Secretary to deal with reform, especially meembers who were considering sporting reform Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of similarities, obviously, a lot of differences, but there are a lot of similarities too. and I think Certainly with the UAW, they have very much tried to make it clear The days of any blank check support to the Democratic partarty are over. They will only support politicians that support them they are looking to unite and keep their organisation united around their key issues. So healthcare is a huge issue for American unions. It's not one here in the same way because we have a national health system, not private insurance for employers. they want to obviously have more one of the key pledges again is to fight for more time at home, more time off. They want pensions protected and, you know, there's about four or five core aims and they want to keep their membership united around that And I think they're having a great deal of success with that in terms of the Trump administration, I think the The steel workkers we've worked with for decades and they're a brilliant trade union and they've got a great new leadague there Roxamne Brown as well I think none of them, the unions that we work with are under any illusions that Trump is an absolute threat to the trade unions there. He abolished collective bargaining rights for millian workers. He has effectively disabled the National Labour Relations Board and certainly the UAW, I was at their political conference in February They were under no illusions whatsoever that the IC agents and their effectively a paramilitary force that sprung up there They really do believe they will be used and deployed against strikers and picket lines if the situation demands it that you know, Trump and the White House and people around him won't shrink from that. So I think there's a lot of lessons to learn from the steelworkers, the UAW and the progressive part of American Unions and in respect of how we then try to deal with exactly the same problems. There are other unions in very different positions who we have historically had relationships with. you mentioned one of them. I think they have taken seemingly taken a line in regard to Trump, which I think we would probably find much more complicated to deal with I was wondering kind of how you view restoring that relationship with the Labour Party and just how close you would like to see Unite being to the Labour Party because I know that the Union affiliation funding was cut, I think by forty percent.. And I was wondering if that was something you'd like to see reinstated Look, things are in a huge state of change at the moment, as you know. I think the period of Kistama's premership is coming to an end. I think we all recognise that. I think the eleven affiliated unions have also said that that's the direction of travel we need to go in We don't know who's coming next. I think the McAfield by election and Burnham's candidacy is going to be reallyally interesting. from what I saw A couple of days ago in his speech, he seems to certainly recognize and acknowledge that The problem is not just last few years, it's last for decades We've had neoliberalism, privatisation, deregulation, anti union agendas ram down our throats It's left huge swathways in the population They've lost good jobs, they've been replaced with minimum wage, precarious jobs, public services have been attacked and there's no perspective there. So I think there's a possibility we may be seeing a change, at least a chance of a change. He's got to win the election in Mcafield first. And I think all of us should be working to make sure reform does not win that seat If he gets through, it could open up a wider debate in the party and hopefully we'll see a shift because we need the party to get back on the side of working people We need proper investment in public services, we need a real industrial strategy, and we really need a much broader bolder vision for the whole society now I think there is A chance of that may come about We have made it clear we'll only support politicians who support us, so we'd want to have the conversations and make sure commitments are in place and then we'll see where we go from there Why don't you just do your job? Do your job? It's the politics show cast. So obviously Andy Burnham is one of those candidates but West Streeting is another name who he said that he would run in a future leadership election If it's not Andy Burnham, how do you see that? Be the eighteenth of June fall smack down in the middle of your general Yeah nomination period then in August, the results come through. How do you think that would affect your chances if it was seen that either Starmer or West Streeting would be the leader of the party? especially around to be reductive a kind of affiliation versus disaffiliation competition that's coming up between you and the current genereneral seecretary How do you think that would affect your chances if he was to lose L, I think we need to be clear The election going on in Unite is an election about what our members need, how the union functions and what direction we're going in. first and foremost. it's not to do directly with what's going on in the Labour Party, albeit naturally. there's relationship there. So the fight battle we will have within the Union is about that direction. And as you know, I've set out clearly The changes, I think need to be made, industrially, politically in terms of the coherence of the organisation itself. withith regards to West streeting and the rest of it I'll be really frank. I can't imagine any situation where we'd be supportive he's got a pretty bad track record in terms of the health service and u members and his, you know, apparent like for more private involvement and all of the rest of it. And it's a decision we'd need to take, I think, in conjunction with the other affiliated unions. and I don't see a huge wave of other unions wanting to support Wes straight in there. So I think that's off the agenda, frankly. in terms of other candidates if Andy Burnham doesn't win Angela Rayna is obviously in the wings there and we'll see how things develop there I do think though If Andy Burnham wins Mc afield And we can galvanize progressive forces to recognise that the enemy in the problem here for trade union members, for their conditions, their jobs and everything is a reform government. They've already got control of a lot of local authorities If we end up with them in a national government, I think it's a disastrous situation. So It will be significant to the extent that should Andy Burnham win If we get a galvanized party again, we can get a move towards progressive politics and a feeling that we can defeat reform, I hope that that will Also, confirm what I've been saying that instead of shying away from the battle, we should take the battle to reform. We should end the silence about reform being the problem. We should get off the fence and be really clear about fighting them and taking them on. If we can get that far and we get the right results, I think that'll be a real shot of confidence. I think something that's struck me a little bit just as we've been talking and seeing some of the more broad stuff you're doing around your campaign talking about reform and obviously, they are a real threat to the trade Union movement I haven't really seen a mention of the Conservative partarty Are they dead? Do do the trade unions consider them anymore? Like what What do you think about There are a reason why they've not been mentioned as much. I think the reality is, isn't it? It's becoming a labour reform battle essentially. and the fact that we haven't mentioned them is perhaps symbolic of the decline of the Tory party in its's drifting away That said, when I listen to Kemy Bardennock and the positions that the Tory party is taking, they are becoming more and more right wing and more extreme Now, I may have it completely wrong, but I could still see reform and the Tory Party doing some sort of deal comeing election. I don't know quite how it would work. Nobody does But I could certainly see that the Tory partarty has got the infrastructure, if you like, that reform need to be able to govern properly and all the rest of it And frankly, let's have a look at it. the people that have defected from the Tory partarty in joined reform. are also some of the more extreme right wing people there Andrea Jenkins, you know, openly says on YouTube she doesn't like unions full stop Gen Ric in their Tice and all these types of people, I think Suueella Braman' in there now as well. Some pretty nasty people who don't like trade unions have gone that way. But also in the Tory Py itself, there's still that agenda there. so Yeah, they're disappearing. They're certainly not gone though and I could see a morphing of those two politics coming together come an election Some of what you were saying about the need for progressive politics and also the need to take the fight to reform sounded quite reminiscent of some of the messaging that we've been hearing from Zack Plansky in the Green Party. And Zach Plansky was asked to speak at the NEUs conference last year. and I know there's been a few other tacet endorsements from some other unions. I was kind of wondering, do you think the Greens now speak more to union members and the traditional working class and kind of how do you see any interactions with the Green Party and their politics Look In terms of local authorities I think there are moves a fooot in quite a few areas to try and build broader coalitions between Labour Party, greens and independence primarily to try and stop reform, getting control of local authorities and to build a progressive popular front style approach in order to, you know, fend off some of the worst attacks that may come And I think that's very pragmatic. I think we have to look at that and have to encourage that Pelensky He certainly, you know, caght the mood of the moment for a lot of people and I think it's be welcomed that there's another progressive voice out there I certainly think some of the attacks coming in on him, you know from some people in the Labour Party are unfounded and wrong and we need to keep focused on where our political enemy really is. Now in terms of Trade unions in the wider movement. I I would I heard Mick Lynch I think it was about a week, ten days ago saying there He felt though with the Greens, it was just historically it doesn't have the same connection with the trade union movement, doesn't have the same ion with our industrial issues and industrial base, as you know the history of the Labour Party has, And I'm very much in aligned with that view. as afterten am with a lot of what Mick says, I think he's been an excellent spokesperson for the wider Union movevement So it throws up lots of complications not least because we've got members in many areas, oil and gas, for example, and nuclear areas that whose interests wouldn't necessarily align with the position that the Green Py has takaking a lot of those things. You're not going to hear from me a smashing down of the Green Party. If they are fellow travellers at the moment in opposing some of the nasty politics, I think we need to be looking at working with them where we possibly can I'd just like to pick up on something you said there about I plans giving another progressive voice in a progressive party outside of the Labour Party obviously Historically it's been broad church strategy within the Labour Party and over the last five years, you've seen a lot of people who under Blair would have been disliked but wouldn't have been felt like they should leave the Labour Party or purged. Do you think thea era of broad church labour partartyism is over.? You know, you're a Labour Party member yourself, you have been for some time. Do you think that era is over? I don't know, it's difficult to say because the Labour Party can lurch at times in quite different directions. A lot of people never gave Jeremy Corbyin a chance to get elected. however he did and he won a re election. and the platform that he stood on was extremely progressive. Oviously that period's over and the tragedy and the missed opportunity with the government coming to power the Labour government that took over under Starmer is It appears to me that they simply handed the party back to the Mandelss in the right wing of the party and then they seem to be intent on finishing the job against some of the more progressive people in the party I don't believe that that's where a lot of average Labour Party members are. I think there's a much more progressive politics there. What we've got is the Aarat I'm suppressing that. Now whether the changes we've already discussed or potential changes will influence that and bring about a change I don't know, but