What
is Unisongate?
A damning audiotape
emerged in early December 2015 that provided evidence that senior
officials of Britain’s biggest public service union, UNISON, had allegedly acted in blatant
breach of the union’s own rules to secure the incumbent general
secretary’s re-election.
The
23-minute tape appeared on an Anonymous Blog here: https://uniondemocracyblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/01/rogue-unison-regional-secretary-breaking-unison-rules-in-election-rigging-scandal/
The audio file can be
downloaded online here:
The
audio recording repeatedly features the voice of UNISON’s London regional
secretary, who can be heard repeatedly thanking paid union officials under her
management for their work in securing branch nominations for the three-term
incumbent UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis.
“We have done very well and
I want to thank everybody and congratulate them on getting the nominations that
they have got. This is a list of the Greater London branch nominations for Dave
Prentis the deadline closed last Friday, I do not have a list of the other candidates,
and that will appear in due course but I haven’t got it. But we have done very
well, we’ve got almost 50 nominations here so that is excellent and thanks very
much, er Dave is very very pleased and he has related that to me personally er
it is very important because obviously this is going to be a hard fought
election.”
(UNISON London Regional
Secretary to UNISON London Region paid officials on 21 October 2015).
The
recording includes derogatory references to Mr Prentis’ three election opponents
(Roger Bannister, John Burgess and Heather Wakefield) and their supporters
along with a detailed discussion of what London regional officials can do to
bolster the Prentis campaign in the days running up to the start of the postal
ballot on 9 November. There is also an explicit
warning not to get “caught out”, while mention of
the union’s election rules provokes widespread laughter.
“And Heather Wakefield is an
unknown entity because she is a woman and she is going to play the woman’s card
even though she has evidence even though I didn’t hear it or about it, her
piece on woman’s hour she was blaming unison for failing to do enough for equal
pay for women when she was responsible for it, so I am not sure why that
happens but there will be an issue around her pushing I am the only woman
candidate. Really this is one of the toughest election that Dave has had to
fight and it is very important that Dave is delivered as I have said before
that not one of the others is capable of running the union quite frankly. (UNISON London Regional Secretary to UNISON
London Region paid officials on 21 October 2015).
“You’re absolutely
entitled to speak with them about the processes and procedures and I would want
you to do it just be careful what is put into the public domain you should not
be using official unison email to do and just be careful about witnesses
to conversations make sure they are friendly witnesses. (UNISON London Regional
Secretary to UNISON London Region paid officials on 21 October 2015).
The use of
full-time officer resources in any UNISON election is a serious breach of the union’s own
electoral rules and
regulations, and potentially unlawful.
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