UNISON General Secretary election - can there be a single candidate for change?

Nominations have now closed in the election for UNISON General Secretary. Christina McAnea's campaign are celebrating in excess of 200 nominations (including the majority of Regions and Service Groups as well as the – arguably questionable – nomination of the National Executive Council). This compares favourably with the tally of 204 branch nominations for Dave Prentis in the last General Secretary election (although that was well below the 371 nominations Dave got in 2010 or the 570 in 2005) and confirms her position as the candidate to beat, going into the final stage of voting by members.

 

Perhaps a better comparison (than any of the three previous elections in which Dave Prentis stood as an incumbent) would be with the election twenty years ago, in which Dave stood to succeed previous General Secretary Rodney Bickerstaffe, and in which informed observers reported that he might lose to Roger Bannister. In 2000 Dave got 278 branch nominations (plus eight Regions and the NEC) before going on to win with 125,584 votes (56.0 per cent of the vote) against 71,021 (31.7 per cent) for Roger Bannister (who had been nominated by 66 branches and one Regional Council) and 27,785 (12.4 per cent) for Malkiat Bilku.

 

The level of support for Christina McAnea evinced by nominations therefore, whilst clearly making her the front runner, certainly does not suggest that she can rely upon winning a majority of votes. Her best chance is, perhaps, that she faces a divided opposition.

 

Roger McKenzie has more than 100 nominations (including the Water, Environment and Transport Service Group and the West Midlands Region) – beating the tally won by Heather Wakefield in the previous election. Roger also has some significant political endorsements – including from former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

 

Paul Holmes also has more than 100 nominations (including the Local Government Service Group and the North West and South East Regions) – by far the best showing of any rank and file lay candidate in any General Secretary election and arguably making him the main challenger to the front runner. Paul's campaign is backed by the largest and most impressive rank and file mobilisation I have seen in any previous General Secretary election.

 

Whilst both Roger and Paul clearly believe – and not without cause – that they are in with a chance of winning this election (not least because, in an election in which – last time – the turnout was below 10% there is ample room for a candidate to triumph by mobilising those who have not previously voted), the fourth candidate, Hugo Pierre, who appears to have just jumped the hurdle of 25 branch nominations, probably does not harbour such hopes.

 

This may account for the proposal from Hugo Pierre that he and the other candidates advocating change should meet to discuss a common platform – and therefore a single candidate – to challenge Christina McAnea. However, even if the proposal has only been made in anticipation of its being rejected by at least one of the recipients (in order to justify Hugo's continued candidacy) there must be a compelling argument that anyone who wants to see change in UNISON should hope that the candidates will at least explore this possibility.

 

Regular readers of this blog – Sid and Doris Blogger – will have spotted that I have been a staunch critic of Hugo's campaign from the outset. It is, therefore, only fair, that I should give credit where it is due – Hugo is right to propose that the candidates seeking to change UNISON should get together to see if they can agree a common platform on which a single candidate would stand.

 

UNISON is bigger and more important to our movement and our class than any of the candidates in this election – and if, like this blogger, you think that the policies advocated by the frontrunner in this election do not offer the change our trade union requires then you have to hope that the candidates for change can put UNISON before themselves.

 

If, of course, Hugo is serious about this sensible proposal, he will withdraw whether or not the other candidates can agree a unified platform, because a three way split in the opposition will no doubt be more damaging to the cause of changing UNISON than a two way split.

 

However, the challenge to Roger and Paul is real and substantial. The members of UNISON need change, and the divided opposition to the continuity candidate in the General Secretary election stands in the way of meeting that need.