McDonnell attacks Unison ‘witchhunt’

Labour MP John McDonnell this week called on Unison, Britain’s biggest public sector union, to hold an inquiry into an alleged “witchhunt” of lay officials conducted by union officers.

by Tribune Web Editor
Thursday, December 10th, 2009

by René Lavanchy

Labour MP John McDonnell this week called on Unison, Britain’s biggest public sector union, to hold an inquiry into an alleged “witchhunt” of lay officials conducted by union officers.

Mr McDonnell held a meeting in Parliament where activists Glenn Kelly and Caroline Bedales said evidence of a campaign against them and other “Trotskyists” had emerged during a recent employment tribunal case brought against the union.

He said he was “quite frankly outraged” by the claims, adding: “I am a Unison member myself and I therefore want to go on record as pledging my support to those activists now being witch-hunted by a section of the union”.

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  • Brian Smith

    A very interesting book could be written about how ‘Trotskyism’ became a matter for hysterical concern in UNISON, first under Bickerstaffe and now on Prentis’s watch. I used to think that Prentis wasw a reformer, after the excesses of RB, but the cases of Yunus Baksch, Glenn Kelly & Co., Caroline Bedale, et al., show how wrong I was.

  • Brian Smith

    A very interesting book could be written about how ‘Trotskyism’ became a matter for hysterical concern in UNISON, first under Bickerstaffe and now on Prentis’s watch. I used to think that Prentis wasw a reformer, after the excesses of RB, but the cases of Yunus Baksch, Glenn Kelly & Co., Caroline Bedale, et al., show how wrong I was.

  • Brian Smith

    A very interesting book could be written about how ‘Trotskyism’ became a matter for hysterical concern in UNISON, first under Bickerstaffe and now on Prentis’s watch. I used to think that Prentis wasw a reformer, after the excesses of RB, but the cases of Yunus Baksch, Glenn Kelly & Co., Caroline Bedale, et al., show how wrong I was.

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