So. Farewell then, Les Bayliss

As I write, Les Bayliss, former Unite assistant general secretary for finance and third-placed candidate in the general secretary election, has quit his job and supporters of Len McCluskey are celebrating their election victory at a Central London hotel. Bayliss was of course the preferred candidate of joint gen sec Derek Simpson, who leaves his post formally on New Year’s Eve, leaving McCluskey and his backer Tony Woodley in charge.

Unconfirmed reports say that Bayliss is to join the Joint Industry Board for the Electrical Contracting Industry, which regulates relations between electrical contracting companies and one union (guess which).

A Unite official tells me: “The general secretary’s [Simpson] gone. The power base has gone. If they stay on after that, they risk getting insulted.”

This is a family blog, and my mum reads it, so I won’t report some of the other things said about Bayliss by his critics at McCluskey’s leaving party – you can probably guess. The serious point is: now he’s gone, will the union be able to unite around McCluskey, his bitter adversary for the top job? On which more later.

P.S. The number of Unite election casualties now stands at two. The first was Richard O’Brien, former joint head of communications for Unite and PR man for the Bayliss campaign, who resigned, and walked, as soon as the result was announced.

Another Unite official (and McCluskey supporter) asked if anyone else from the Bayliss camp should quit, said: “I don’t think it should go any further” and denounced the practice of purging officials in the former Amicus section.

Unite election: decoded

I didn’t get a chance to blog yesterday about Len McCluskey’s victory in the Unite election, which has now been covered everywhere from the Morning Star to ConservativeHome*. However I did gather some thoughts and views…

1) Len McCluskey’s impressive vote share – 42.4 per cent, about 101,000 votes – was (just) more than Jerry Hicks and Les Bayliss combined, which will have surprised some. Hicks and McCluskey were vying for the left-wing vote, and for one reason or another the insurgent didn’t persuade nearly enough supporters to desert the favourite.

Asked why, Hicks says: “McCluskey had a thumping great army of officers working on his behalf.” It’s true that a lot of full-time officers supported McCluskey; whether they ‘worked’ for him I can’t really say. This impressive list of McCluskey supporters left out two key people – Simon Dubbins, director of the international department and former candidate, and Andrew Murray, director of communications and long-standing right hand-man of Tony Woodley, who anointed McCluskey as his successor.

2) That said, Hicks has again pulled off the trick of beating a full-time officer into third place in a leadership election (last year it was Kevin Coyne, this year Les Bayliss). Speaking to me yesterday, Hicks was full of scorn for those who though the election was a straight fight between Bayliss and McCluskey: “If the United Left [the McCluskey faction] and their candidate see Les Bayliss as their threat, they’re not going to get the analysis right beyond the union.”

3) We shouldn’t overlook Gail Cartmail,  who was only three percentage points behind Les Bayliss (16.4 per cent to his 19.3 per cent) despite a rather lower profile. “I think this shows I ran a very strong campaign”, the Star quotes her as saying.

4) But overshadowing all this, as I noted on Saturday night, is the low turnout of 16 per cent. Unite executive member and blogger Ian Allinson bemoans the “worrying sign of the lack of engagement of members with the union”. There could be any number of reasons for this low turnout, only slightly more than the 13 per cent for the Amicus election despite more publicity. But the fact is that many Unite members don’t subscribe to their leadership’s politics, whichever brand of leader they get – as evidenced by the fact that, when asked, many vote Conservative.

I will post more views from the blog fan club when I get the chance…

*I wonder which is more pleased about McCluskey’s victory? ConHome quotes Conservative chairman Baroness Warsi saying it marks the end of a “terrible week for Ed Miliband” because Unite will, she argues, force Labour to dance to a far-left tune. Whereas last time I looked, Les Bayliss sat on the Morning Star’s management committee… Just a passing thought.

Update: It’s been pointed out that Simon Dubbins’ name does in fact feature on a later version of McCluskey’s campaign advert. Andrew Murray’s does not.

 

Poles apart as Unite election voting begins

The battle lines are drawn as ballots start dropping on the doormats of some 1.5 million Unite members this week.

The three with the biggest stacks of nominations, Les Bayliss, Len McCluskey and Jerry Hicks, have spent the past weeks on a fortress strategy. Not triangulating, not reaching out to each other’s supporters, but digging in, reinforcing and restating their positions.

Thus Les Bayliss took a pot shot at his boss Tony Woodley this month, saying that watching him conducting the British Airways dispute was “like looking at an episode of Life on Mars”.

Thus Tony Woodley hit back last week, calling Bayliss’ remarks about the BA dispute “nothing short of scandalous”.

But it was ever thus. Last year, in an interview with lobby correspondent Ian Hernon of the Liverpool Echo, McCluskey said that he’d supported the Militant Tendency [while not joining them] and “on the chief issues they were right.”

While on his website, Les Bayliss says that his “favourite book of all time is Left Wing Communism & Infantile Disorder [sic] by Lenin”, a coded message to students of left-wing politics that he has no time for Trotskyists, Militant supporters and the like.

McCluskey is ever portraying himself as the young-at-heart insurgent, Bayliss as the head-screwed-on moderate.

Meanwhile, Jerry Hicks attacks both of them as guilty of breaking election rules (I first broke the news of Hicks calling for Bayliss’ head on this website, below) and reiterates that he is the rank and file candidate. Bayliss, McCluskey and Gail Cartmail are in “jobs for life”, he says; whereas Hicks hasn’t even got a job to lose.

Unite election: Has Les Bayliss been sending out mass spam?

Some union officials thought that last week’s Channel 4 Dispatches programme, “What’s the Point of the Unions?” amounted to a “hatchet job” on assistant general secretary and Unite general secretary candidate Les Bayliss. That’s a bit strong. The programme did highlight controversial donations to a charity, overseen by Bayliss – a story which appeared in Private Eye several years ago – but didn’t level any other charges directly at him.

Now news reaches me from the blog fan club of a slightly more serious charge. Simon Hearn, the returning officer from Electoral Reform Services who are overseeing the election, reports that he’s received 33 complaints from Unite members who say Bayliss has sent them messages without permission. He’s not the only one: Jerry Hicks, the rank and file candidate, says he’s received an unsolicited letter (see above) – and has told me he thinks Bayliss should be disqualified for it. Members of staff also tell me they’ve received the letter, without signing up for it.

Complaints from members about unwanted letters or emails from Bayliss surfaced before Unite had even agreed rules for the conduct of the election; Unite executive committee member Ian Allinson (a Jerry Hicks supporter) mentioned them on his blog in June. Joint general secretary Tony Woodley also angrily wrote to Bayliss around the same time to complain about messages to “a large number of employees including many who have never “signed up” to receive your campaign bulletins”.

Now, the complaints have resurfaced after more letters were allegedly received in September – and this time, the ballot rules prohibit any unsolicited messages from candidates. The issue came up at the last Unite executive meeting, where many executive members expressed unhappiness about it. They were promised an investigation.

Hearns also mentioned several complaints from “three of the candidates” about unwanted newsletters and emails from Len McCluskey. But the biggest and longest-running storm seems to have arisen over messages in Bayliss’ name.

It’s unclear what, if anything will happen over this. If Bayliss is found guilty of a “Les spam mission”, as one disgruntled official puts it, it would be dangerous for Unite to disqualify him from the election. It would be equally dangerous, and unlikely, for Len McCluskey to be disqualified if allegations against him are upheld. Either move would enrage supporters. “Do you risk making a martyr of him?” a senior and well-connected Unite source muses.

However, as Hicks points out, the messages could also be a breach of data protection legislation – which would not be a matter for Unite, but the courts… Unite’s data protection officer has been asked to investigate.

I did ask the Bayliss campaign about the above letter (full version here), and will update this post if I hear from them. They deny sending out any unsolicited messages.

And they’re off: Unite election candidate addresses

I’ll return shortly to the highly contentious issue of communications from candidates in the Unite election. But first, the officially sanctioned 600-word statements from the candidates have now been posted online and sent to members.

Les Bayliss’ message is straightforward to the point of terseness: “Fellow Members, in two weeks time you will be receiving ballot papers along with an election address in which I will be setting out my request for your support in the election for General Secretary. All candidates have been given this opportunity by the Executive Council…” Quite why this is stressed is unclear; maybe to allay concerns over unsolicited letters. It’s a far cry from his divisive remarks quoted in the News of the World, or his recent sniping at Len McCluskey, accusing him of “infantile politics” after he shouted “rubbish” during Ed Miliband’s speech to the Labour conference. A change of strategy, perhaps.

He goes on to say he will support strong industrial sectors and that members in each sector should “have a voice” in which officers manage each sector – but he doesn’t go as far as saying officers should be elected; he’d continue to appoint them himself. Bayliss reiterates his call for a 24/7 members’ support centre, a policy he says has been copied by other candidates.

Gail Cartmail picks a fight with Jerry Hicks by calling herself “the only progressive and independent candidate”, presumably referring to Hicks’ support from the Socialist Workers Party. Her “number one priority” is a campaign to protect members’ jobs. Like Bayliss, she supports a Labour government, but one which “promotes a living wage and one that delivers trade union freedom”. She also says she’ll speak out for equality, but there’s less mention of the macho domination of trade unions that she’s complained of in the past.

Jerry Hicks: Some fun at last. When Hicks ran in the 2008 Amicus general secretary election, his statement to members was sent alongside a notice from Unite HQ taking issue with some of what he said. This time, it seems no official objection has been voiced, and he’s let rip at the leadership and his opponents (all assistant general secretaries), lumping them together as “the establishment” and responsible for the “mismanagement of Unite”.

He calls for election of union officers and berates the other three for not doing so; re-iterates that he’d refuse a six-figure salary and take an average wage; and lambasts Unite for having “thrown £10s [of] millions at Labour in return for so little”. However, he probably over-reaches himself when he promises to, er, scrap Trident. Not even Jack Jones could have done that.

Incidentally, Bayliss, McCluskey and Cartmail can worry about something else if Hicks is elected: he’s suggested to me that he’d like to cut their salaries. “I think it’s outrageous that the packages of Gail Cartmail and Les Bayliss add up to £138,000”, he said, while admitting he’s not sure how. “My view is those contracts should be changed. I would support that position, that they should be changed”.

Len McCluskey: “THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR EXPERIENCE”, the Scouse ex-T&G man writes, seeking to turn his relatively advanced years (60) into a plus point. He trumpets getting “over 830” nominations, although according to the returning officer he only got 829. He stresses the need to bring Unite together once and for all, and distances himself from the lurid stories of lavish meal, helicopter trips and so on by railing against “extravagances at the top of the union”, for which read “by Derek Simpson” (he is Tony Woodley’s man, after all). His call for a “24/7 one stop shop” for members is very similar to Bayliss’ and he says, a bit vaguely, “no more blank cheques for New Labour” (would he give New Labour cheques at all?)

More follows…

Unite election: Len McCluskey way ahead, Cartmail kicks Bayliss’ van

Unite’s executive council yesterday received the first official figures for nominations of candidates in their general secretary election. As the man himself predicted, assistant general secertary Len McCluskey is streets ahead of his nearest rival, Les Bayliss, with 829 workplace and branch nominations to Bayliss’ 214.

It certainly puts the remarks of Bayliss supporters last week – who, as I reported, said that McCluskey’s talk of having over 500 nominations more than Bayliss was “bollocks” – into context. However, it also bears out their counter-cliam that Bayliss’ branches and workplaces have more members. Despite having nearly eight times more nominations, McCluskey’s represent less than three times as many members.

Captain Sensible below points out that Ken Jackson was ahead on nominations before losing the AEEU union general secretary election to a certain Derek Simpson.

Gail Cartmail is pleased with her lot, given that people had suggested in the past that she wouldn’t even qualify to make it onto the ballot paper (the minimum number of nominations needed is 50). On her blog, Gail has mocked Bayliss’ use of a van plastered with pictures of his head, calling it a “mini-van for a mini-man” (miaow) and sconred his call for no strikes at Christmas (“What about Easter, Eid or Yom Kippur, the Solstice or Equinox?”) She also criticises McCluskey for attacking Bayliss in his platform speech at the TUC (as I reported here earlier; his none-too-subtle reference to “pandering to the Murdoch press”).

Those nominations in full:

1. Len McCluskey, 829 valid nominations, including nominations from branches representing 368,986 members
2. Les Bayliss, 214 valid nominations, including nominations from branches representing 137,942 members
3. Jerry Hicks, 137 valid nominations, including nominations from branches representing 109,088 members
4. Gail Cartmail, 97 valid nominations, including nominations from branches representing 37,836 members

Hat-tip: Ian Allinson

Meanwhile, back at the Unite election…

Two fiercely competitive frontrunners, disputed figures, cries of “bollocks” – the election for the next leader of the Unite union has it all. And reports back from the TUC Congress suggest that rivalry and policy are being doled out in roughly equal measure. Here, behind the News of the World headlines, is what is going on.

Les Bayliss predictably caused a slight sensation on the eve of Congress when a newspaper article appeared quoting him as criticising British Airways cabin crew for their planned 12-day strike over Christmas, saying: “If I am general secretary of Unite there will NEVER be any strikes called over Christmas”, and “Public sector strikes will only deprive the vulnerable of services the Tories want to cut. We’ll be doing the bad guy’s job for him. Strikes will also turn the real victims, our members, into the villains.”

And yes, he did actually say all that. Not to the News of the World, but in a speech – the full version is on his website. Bayliss’ argument is that strikes in the 1980s were counter-productive, lost sympathy for unions and encouraged the introduction of laws to curb their power.

Unfortunately for Bayliss, some Unite members assumed that he had given an interview to the NoW. “You’re kidding me!” a senior source said when told of the article, adding: “To use News International as a mouthpiece, whose owner sacked six thousand members in the move to Wapping, is quite a disgrace”. Fair or not, it’s the impression some have got.

However, the line peddled by the NoW’s David Wooding – “He appealed to the moderate majority to stand up to hardliners hell-bent on leading them over the cliff edge” – is a fair summary of Bayliss’ pitch to Unite members, particularly the skilled professionals that he is targeting. Many of these are far from dyed-in the-wool lefties; nearly a third of Unite members intend to vote Conservative.

Rival Len McCluskey’s rhetoric is scarcely less colourful. The day after the NoW article, speaking to a plenary Congress session on employment rights, and calling for resistance to the restrictive use of union laws, he said – no, he shouted: “Let me be clear again, especially to anyone in Unite who understands the cuts won’t be stopped by pandering to the Murdoch press. In the words of Henry V, he that hath no stomach for this fight, let him depart.” “Not  too over the top, then,” sniggered a Unite official next to me as he spoke.

So, anyway – now that nominations have closed, and the ballot begins next month, who is ahead?

According to McCluskey’s website, it’s him, and according to a Financial Times piece too – except that the piece’s author, Brian Groom, didn’t actually want it published; he thought the figures weren’t solid. McCluskey is claiming over 650 nominations from branches compared to (he says) Bayliss and Jerry Hicks, who are unlikely to get more than 100 nominations apiece. Nominations don’t count as votes, but they do help influence members and allow candidates to receive funding from branches.

Word among McCluskey’s supporters is that he does indeed have well over 600 nominations. Meanwhile, friends of Bayliss dismiss the figures as “bollocks”. They aren’t official – true enough – and they’re two weeks out of date. the complaint goes. Since then, Bayliss has picked up nominations, I am told. I took this rebuttal back to camp McCluskey. “Bollocks”, I was told. Hmm.

Jerry Hicks, however, does agree with McCluskey’s analysis: he is telling supporters that he has won 102 branch nominations, as well as 35 workplaces, and he thinks he is close to Bayliss, ahead of Gail Cartmail and behind McCluskey. Go figure.

Official figures for nominations will be released soon. Watch this space…

Gail Cartmail speaks to this blog

I really need to pay more attention to what goes on on this blog – but then it’s a very part-time pursuit. Last week, to my ignorance, Unite general secretary election candidate Gail Cartmail waded in to a lively discussion on my post below, in order to respnd to critics and explain her position. Here’s what she had to say:

On the support for candidates by full-time officers and other Unite staff:

“An instruction was issued by JGS Tony Woodley today quite rightly advising staff and officials that displaying or wearing election material while at work is prohibited.”

Very interesting – at Unite’s policy conference, the biggest example by far of wearing election material came from supporters of Len McCluskey. Several full-time officers such as former national officer for civil air transport Steve Turner were seen wearing McCluskey lanyards and poloshirts embroidered with  ‘Unite 4 Len’ logos. McCluskey is of course Woodley’s preferred candidate, so this doesn’t seem a partian move on the face of it.

Cartmail also attacked McCluskey and Les Bayliss as being part of the establishmednt and part of the problem:

“My AGS colleagues have had every opportunity to Unite the opposing left factions and use their position in the inner circle to deliver integration – they have sadly not stepped up to the mark on either count so time for a fresh start, a different approach.”

Clearly she doesn’t see herself as being part of that inner circle. If either Les Bayliss or Len McCluskey want to respond, the comments thread – and my inbox – is yours…

Who is in the lead in Unite election?

With nomination papers for the election to become general secretary of the Unite union hitting doormats, it’s a good time to check what’s going on. And it has been a busy couple of weeks in trade union politics. So let’s take a look at the election’s two frontrunners.

Both Paul Reuter and Simon Dubbins have now withdrawn from the race, respectively backing Les Bayliss and Len McCluskey. The effect of this backing is not just to concentrate support, but to concentrate it in the hands of what might be called, without too much fear of reprisal, the establishment candidates. Bayliss, from the former Amicus side, is supported by joint general secretary Derek Simpson; McCluskey by JGS Tony Woodley.

Both Reuter and Dubbins are from the former Amicus side, Dubbins (like his father) from the GPMU graphical paper and media union, Reuter from the Amalgamated Engineering Union. Both Bayliss and McCluskey say they want to unite the T&G and Amicus halves of Unite – but (not that any of them can help it) the McCluskey-Dubbins agreement, unlike Reuter-Bayliss, is between a T&G and an Amicus man. So that should be of some propaganda value.

What’s more, Dubbins has this week published a list of supporters on his website who are following him over to Len McCluskey. Top of the supporters list are the national chairs of Unite’s industrial committees for aerospace and for graphical paper and media. Interestingly, one of Bayliss’ supporters is assistant general secretary Tony Burke, the chief official in charge of the GPM sector, while he is expected to pick up support in skilled ex-Amicus sectors like aerospace. So not too much can be relied on. (I have asked what supporters Reuter brings with him, but without result so far).

Finally some allegations and counter-allegations. Those not supporting Bayliss or, previously, Reuter have suggested that Reuter didn’t intend to run at all, and planned to support Bayliss prior to his announcement last Wednesday. This is strenuously denied by supporters. It’s certainly been rumoured for a long time, though, that an alliance was under discussion, as I mentioned last week, and Reuter didn’t flyer at the policy conference.

Simon Dubbins is accused of packing it in either because a) he realised he didn’t have much of a chance or b) that he didn’t have the necessary length of service under Unite’s rule book (rule 16.12. Yes I have read it), as Les Bayliss’ email says (see below). I hear that Dubbins did tell supporters he was an underdog in the election, and that he didn’t have quite the right continuous service – but that he was prepared to challenge that rule. But perhaps, if so, that would have become a distraction.

More on the Unite election – and its wider – implications – later…

Unite union election gets nasty

By email anyway. Within days of Unite election candidate Simon Dubbins withdrawing and throwing his weight behind Len McCluskey for the Unite leadership, McCluskey’s main rival Les Bayliss has launched a stinging attack on the pair of them – and it gets personal. Here’s an email Bayliss has sent to full-time officers in the union:

“The first casualty of war, they say, is truth. Well two of the combatants in Unites ongoing fight for the General Secretary position have entirely annihilated truth in their statements this week.
“First we were asked by Simon Dubbins to believe that he underwent a Nick Cleggesque political transformation during the policy conference in Manchester last week. Apparently he no longer considers himself to be the only “unity” candidate on offer. Nor does he feel his relative youth compared to other candidates is an electoral asset any longer. So he is teaming up with the oldest candidate currently available Len McCluskey. He may of course have come to this view since Len McCluskey’s supporters on the Executive Council forced through a regulation that will remove the candidate’s age from the ballot form, thus rendering age a secret to be kept from the members.
“The second battering of the truth comes from Len McCluskey himself. He welcomes Simon’s bold and courageous step in joining up with him to beat a path toward a united Unite, and not a carbon copy of either previous unions. Strangely Simon has chosen to overlook the fact that Len’s election campaign is based almost word for word on Tony Woodley’s GS campaign in the T&G back in 2003. So much for building Unite mark 1.
“The truth is, as always, less prosaic [sic]. Simon Dubbins hasn’t got the required 10 years membership of Unite to be a candidate for General Secretary. A fact he may have only recently been alerted to, last week perhaps, in which case it would seem that he cannot have given the idea of standing as GS the necessary serious consideration. Alternatively he may of known all along and his intention was always to do a deal with Len McCluskey, albeit not quite as early in he campaign as this. Either way neither option reflects well on either man does it?
Les4GS”

More on the Unite election – and what Dubbins supporters make of this message (clue – they don’t agree with it) later…