Letter from Andy Ford
Unite and Unison are the largest unions in the UK, but number three (with about 600,000 members) is the GMB. GMB is a strange beast. It has no organised left and hasn’t had one for as long as I can remember. It’s been traditionally on the right of the labour movement. On the other hand, it is a very working class (‘proletarian’) union.
The result of the GMB Union’s election for its new General Secretary was announced on 3rd June with a victory for Gary Smith (the Scotland secretary), the most ‘continuity’ candidate. The turnout was poor again, at 10.6%, but was actually higher than the last time, and higher than the turnouts for recent elections in RMT and PCS (both rightly seen as more ‘left’ unions). Smith received 50%, against 28% for Rehana Azam (Public Services national secretary), and 22% for Giovanna Holt (an organiser in the North-West and Ireland region).
None of the candidates was a ‘left’ candidate, at least not obviously so. The union’s bizarre ban on campaigning during an election makes it very difficult to work out where someone’s coming from and what their policies are, unless you have had experience of them. It also makes it very difficult for any candidate who is not a national officer to become well-enough known to members to mount a realistic challenge, thereby reinforcing the status quo.
‘Campaigning’ in such elections is restricted to election statements and some hustings meetings, and these were conducted virtually this time due to Covid. I thought they all sounded quite similar on the hustings. Smith made great play of the Glasgow equal pay strikes of 2018 and a renewed focus on workplace organising in GMB Scotland. Holt, only by virtue of not being a national officer, was perceived as being more of an anti-establishment candidate, and personally I voted for her on that basis.
It all comes against the background of internal crisis with the sudden departure last year of the former general secretary, Tim Roache, and the ensuing Monaghan Report, which scathingly branded the union as “institutionally sexist”, with a culture of bullying and heavy drinking. All three candidates in the recent election had pledged to implement the recommendations of that report.
This election shows again that restrictions on campaigning in elections need to be overturned, and that there is a need for a strong, organised grassroots movement. The fact that, in recent times at least, there is not a tradition of broad left organising within the union, the third biggest in the country, is a weakness which remains to be addressed.
