Trust Derek Simpson to do the business for Unite

From the Daily Mirror, February 13th.......

Please pass on to your contacts etc.

Trust Derek Simpson to do the business for Unite


By Paul Routledge 13/02/2009

Democracy can be a chore, even a bore. But it’s always important.

And never more important in the trade union movement than in the election under way in Britain’s biggest union, Unite. Ballot papers for 750,000 former Amicus members arrive tomorrow.

It’s fiendishly complicated, but basically the poll’s been forced on Derek Simpson, the joint General Secretary. To stay in office for the next vital year, he needs the support of his members in an election the union doesn’t need but has to have.

Against the conventional wisdom of the time, I backed Derek Simpson when he first ran for the Amicus leadership. He won, after three re-counts.

Derek comes from Sheffield, and the Union’s sensible Left. He’s been on TV a lot, arguing the case for British workers to have full access to British jobs.

This was a delicate task, because under Tory trade union laws, Unite can’t lead unofficial strikers without risking court injunction and the seizure of its funds.

He handled the crisis well, working behind the scenes with ministers – including Gordon Brown – as well as articulating the concerns of skilled British workers in public. That’s why I stick to my original judgment that Derek Simpson is a man of integrity and experience. Members would be wise to stick with him rather than run the risk of electing an unknown novice.

He wants the Government to intervene more, adopting strategies that support workers, as the continentals have done to save their industries.

Simpson has been the target of a sustained smear campaign in the Murdoch Press, which to my mind is as good a reason as any to back him again.

He’s the best man to secure the future of the new Union formed by the merger of Amicus and TGWU.

Voting begins tomorrow February 14 and closes on March 6. To avoid the comedy that was very nearly a tragedy at his last leadership election, I urge all members to vote.

If I had a vote, it would certainly go to Derek.