Sharon Graham

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Sharon Graham
General Secretary of Unite the Union
Assumed office
26 August 2021
Preceded byLen McCluskey
Personal details
Born (1968-12-03) 3 December 1968 (age 55)
London, England
Political partyLabour
SpouseJack Clarke
Children1
OccupationTrade unionist
Websitesharongraham.org

Sharon Mairead Graham (born 3 December 1968[1]) is a British trade unionist who has been the general secretary of Unite since 26 August 2021. She is the first woman to hold the position. She previously served as the union's executive officer and as head of its organising and leverage department.

Early life[edit]

Sharon Graham was born in Hammersmith in 1968.[2][3] She is one of four children to a father from Newcastle upon Tyne and a mother from Abbeyfeale, County Limerick.[4][5] She went to the Sacred Heart High School in Hammersmith.[6]

She left school and began work as a silver service waitress at 16, and led her first walkout at 17 in defence of the rights of casual workers.[6][7] The strike was successful and won her colleagues equal pay. Graham initially intended to go into journalism and worked for an estate agent.[8] When she was 27, she studied at the Trades Union Congress's Organising Academy.[5]

Career[edit]

Union official[edit]

Graham began working[when?] as a national youth and development officer for the Transport and General Workers' Union,[8] which later became Unite the Union in a merger.[5] In 2016, she was working as Unite's director of organising.[9] She was considered a potential candidate in the union's 2017 general secretary election, which had been prompted by Len McCluskey's early resignation to seek a new mandate.[10] She ran the union's organising and leverage department, running twelve successful leverage campaigns, which involves taking action beyond the immediate management to company directors, shareholders, investors and suppliers.[11]

She led the union's response to British Airways (BA) attempt to fire and rehire staff on worse contracts in 2020.[12][13] She said that the airline should be stripped of its privileges at Heathrow Airport due to the way it had treated its staff, and that if the behaviour went unchecked then more companies would act in a similar way.[14][15] More than 280 Members of Parliament pledged to support a review of BA's privileged access to take-off and landing slots at airports.[16] In her role as a union official, Graham also led Unite's campaign to unionise Amazon.[17]

In 2021, McCluskey announced his retirement as general secretary of Unite after ten years in the role.[18] The union's left-wing United Left faction held a hustings and ballot to determine a single candidate for the faction, which was won by the union's assistant general secretary Steve Turner. The other participant, Howard Beckett, continued as a candidate without the support of United Left. Graham, although also considered to be on the left-wing of the union, ran in the election without seeking the faction's endorsement.[19][20] She said she was "not a member of any Unite or Labour faction - other than my own supporters group".[17] Her campaign was focused on redirecting attention towards workers' rights and workplaces instead of engaging with the internal politics of the Labour Party, of which Unite is an affiliated trade union.[21][22] After the close of nominations, Beckett withdrew from the election and endorsed Turner.[22] McCluskey also endorsed Turner, and members pressured Graham to withdraw and support Turner to prevent Gerard Coyne, a centrist candidate, from becoming general secretary.[9][22] Graham declined to do so, and received online abuse for her decision to remain a candidate.[23] Her election campaign was supported by the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party.[24][5]

General Secretary[edit]

Graham was elected the general secretary of Unite on 25 August 2021 with 46,696 votes, 37.7% of the votes cast, less than 4% of the membership,[25] and took office on 26 August.[26][27][28] In September 2021, she wrote in The Guardian that Unite should focus more on fighting "for jobs, pay and conditions" rather than "hoping for the election of a Labour government to solve our members' problems".[29] The same month, she warned Keir Starmer that he had "lost touch with reality" because of his intention to change the Labour Party leadership election rules.[30] On 9 February 2022, following the controversial treatment of Coventry Council - a Labour-led council - workers, she stated that all remaining Labour funding was "under review".[31] Starmer said that the Labour Party would not be "influenced by threats".[32] In 2023, Graham’s confrontational approach to the Labour Party led to the New Statesman naming her as the eleventh most powerful Left Wing figure in the UK that year. [33]

Personal life[edit]

Graham married Jack Clarke in 2005. They live in Hammersmith with their son Thomas.[34][35]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Graham, Sharon Mairead". Who's Who. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  2. ^ "Sharon Graham announced as Unite's new general secretary". www.unitetheunion.org. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  3. ^ Hutcheon, Paul (22 July 2021). "Unite general secretary candidate says Scottish members will decide independence stance". Daily Record. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
  4. ^ Rabbitts, Nick (28 April 2021). "Union election candidate's Limerick connections". Limerick Leader. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
  5. ^ a b c d "New Unite boss Sharon Graham: doing what it says on the union tin". The Guardian. 25 August 2021. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  6. ^ a b Stourton, Edward (4 September 2021). Sharon Graham. Profile. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  7. ^ Sleigh, Sophia (13 August 2021). "'I'll fight for women 'cut out' of promotions post-pandemic', says Unite candidate Sharon Graham". Evening Standard. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
  8. ^ a b "Top rung/Bottom Rung". The Guardian. 10 March 2000. Archived from the original on 9 May 2014. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
  9. ^ a b "Sharon Graham 'confident' of becoming next Unite leader". The Guardian. 24 August 2021. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  10. ^ "What are Len McCluskey's chances of re-election at Unite?". www.newstatesman.com. 6 December 2016. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  11. ^ "Sharon Graham, Unite's new leader, plots a radical overhaul". The Economist. 28 August 2021. Archived from the original on 13 September 2021. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  12. ^ "BA workers stage demo in Fareham to highlight company's 'brutal' job cuts". www.portsmouth.co.uk. Archived from the original on 28 September 2020. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  13. ^ "Unite union elects Sharon Graham as first woman leader". BBC News. 25 August 2021. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  14. ^ Holden, John (7 August 2020). "Protesters pack Shoreham town centre to oppose British Airways redundancies". www.worthingherald.co.uk. Archived from the original on 10 August 2020. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  15. ^ Young, Sarah (26 June 2020). "In battle against British Airways, trade union goes to investors". Reuters. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  16. ^ Gidden, Alex (4 September 2020). "BA Betrayal protest heads to Witham Town Hall". Maldon Standard. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  17. ^ a b "Country's most powerful trade union to have first ever woman general secretary". Wimbledon Times. 25 August 2021. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  18. ^ "Unite leadership race under way as union announces election to decide Len McCluskey's successor". Sky News. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  19. ^ Rodgers, Sienna (18 July 2020). "Steve Turner wins United Left backing to succeed Len McCluskey". LabourList. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  20. ^ "After McCluskey: who will win Unite's crown?". www.newstatesman.com. 17 July 2020. Archived from the original on 19 January 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  21. ^ "Can Starmer keep hold of his party machine?". BBC News. 12 November 2020. Archived from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  22. ^ a b c "Unite: Leftwinger Sharon Graham on course to become union's first female leader, pulling off surprise victory". Sky News. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  23. ^ "Female candidate to lead Unite union faced 'disgraceful abuse'". The Guardian. 27 June 2021. Archived from the original on 22 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  24. ^ "Momentum congratulates hard-left candidate set to be next Unite leader". The Independent. 24 August 2021. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  25. ^ "UK pseudo-left's political myth-making over Sharon Graham's election as Unite union general secretary". World Socialist Web Site. 29 August 2021. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  26. ^ "Leftwing outsider Sharon Graham elected as Unite union leader". The Guardian. 25 August 2021. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  27. ^ Grylls, George. "Sharon Graham elected as Unite general secretary over Starmer favourite". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  28. ^ "Sharon Graham becomes first female general secretary of Unite union". Sky News. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  29. ^ Allegretti, Aubrey (12 September 2021). "Workers shouldn't wait for Labour victory, says Unite's Sharon Graham". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 13 September 2021. Retrieved 13 September 2021.
  30. ^ Wearmouth, Rachel (21 September 2021). "Unite boss warns Starmer he has 'lost touch with reality' with rules shake-up". Daily Mirror.
  31. ^ Duffy, Nick (9 February 2022). "Unite boss threatens to pull all funding from Labour due to dispute over Coventry bin workers". i.
  32. ^ "Sir Keir Starmer: Labour will not be influenced by Unite union funding threats". BBC News. 10 February 2022.
  33. ^ Statesman, New (17 May 2023). "The New Statesman's left power list". New Statesman. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
  34. ^ Mathers, Matt (25 August 2021). "Who is Sharon Graham, the Unite union's new leader?". The Independent. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  35. ^ Wearmouth, Rachel (25 August 2021). "Who is Sharon Graham? The left-wing 'outsider' and first woman in powerful Unite job". Daily Mirror. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 26 August 2021.
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