UNITE leader Sharon Graham: Only organised workers can move politicians

The UNITE union was formed in 2007 by the merger of the T&G and AMICUS unions. Today it is the second largest union in the country. It has 1.2 million members. Two years ago a woman was elected as general secretary for the first time in Unite. After her election, Sharon Graham has always said that the interests and successes of the workers will be her primary goal. She declared war on the bureaucracy within  her union. She launched an investigation into union officials who misused members money.  She increased strike funds. She preferred to meet with workers at picket lines  and workers protests  rather than attending other general group meetings and rallies. Even though she received various criticisms in this regard, her focus always been striking workers and their jobs, pay and conditions, especially at times when thousands of Unite members are on strike wining double digit pay rises or facing redundancies.

One of these workers protest  was the protest march of steelworkers in Port Talbot, Wales on 17 February. 2,800 workers are facing job losses. The plant is to be closed and the employer is planning to move production to India, where it will be cheaper. Sharon marched arm in arm with the workers in this protest march.

At the end of the march, she answered Evrensel's questions about the situation facing steel workers, the attitude of politicians and the struggle of trade unions.

First of all, what will be the consequences of the closure? 

While we're here today, is that Tata announcing they're going to have 2800 jobs are going to go from this plant and there is absolutely no reason why these jobs have to go. There's a workers transition that we have put forward, a plan we have put forward to save these jobs and Tata needs to take notice of that plan. 

Do you think the government really think about British workers here in the UK? 

At the moment they've thrown £500 million to Tata with no jobs guarantees, panicked, press the panic button instead of sitting down and saying what do we need for our industry in the UK and so there is no industrial strategy in the UK and that's why we need to have a change of government. But Labour also need to step up to the mark. 

What is the chance to all the unions to stand together to fight against all those kind of attacks on the workers?

We have to,  we have to stand. There may be disagreements on this plan or that plan, but ultimately we are united on the fact that we must stand together for the jobs on this plant. We're very, very clear that there's no need to shut these blast furnaces down and that we can have this transition. We can build an electric car at the same time as keeping these blast furnaces open. And that's what we're asking Tata to do. 

This year, 40th anniversaries of the miners’ strike. Since that there are a lot of privatisations and sellout in the UK. What? What is your idea to fight against all those privatisations politics and get back to public ownership all those? 

I suppose the first thing as a leader of a trade union and my first job is to make sure that workers get a better deal at work. And so we have had over 1000 disputes since I was elected two years ago. We've basically put £420 million back into those workers’ pockets. Paid out £32,000 in strike pay. So my first task is to make sure that everybody in this cost of living price is able to get a fair deal. Obviously, what we're also looking at is sector bargaining. So looking at bargaining in each sector. At the same time with multiple employers. But of course, in terms of the fabric of society, we need to move the political dairy. We don't have any party at the moment who's talking about renationalisation. Labour aren’t talking about renationalisation, but if you take something like energy, we're here because 2800 workers are just about to lose their jobs because in Britain the energy prices are 85% higher. If we were in France, where they own their own energy. We will be able to deal with it.  The privatisation project should be dead. It hasn't worked and obviously I'll be battling on that. With labour also. 

My last question is about Labour Party. Recently in the strikes, Keit Starmer called all MP's not to go to the pickup lines. İf Labour wins the election, what will be your relations with the Labour government? Do you think Labour government will really care about all the workers?

After 30 years of negotiating, 30 years have been in a political situation. İs that politicians move when they're moved. And what we've got to do is, we've got to create the people power to move them. İf they're in government and the people say this is not acceptable, this is the stake in the ground, this is what we want. That is when they will move. And that's why it's really important to build working power. That's why it's really important to build power in the communities. So that we can say to politicians, you now need to move. My experience is that politicians follow. They very rarely lead. So we need to make sure they follow.