The scale and ferocity of the war Unison's pro-Labour leadership has launched on branch leaders opposed to their sell outs is astonishing. Opposition candidates have been expelled, activists sacked with the collusion of Unison HQ and disobedient branches taken over by unelected officials. The current witch-hunt rivals anything seen since the days Cold War bans and prescriptions.

Yunus Bakhsh, a member of the Socialist Workers Party and secretary of Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Trust branch, was sacked in June after a two year campaign of defamation by his employer based on hearsay complaints of intimidation. Then, the defence turned prosecutor, as Unison officials suspended Yunus for representing a member, whose job he saved, and campaigning for election without permission. Despite Yunus retaining the overwhelming support of his branch members and being elected to Unison's health executive on 86 per cent of the vote, the union's leadership expelled him in November.

This year Unison also expelled Tony Staunton, Plymouth council branch secretary and a member of Unison for 23 years, in January, despite Tony proving that he had not used union photocopying and telephone facilities for his own activities. Staunton's real crime? He was first suspended from office weeks after declaring his intention to stand for the NEC against Steve Warwick, chairperson of Unison Labour Link. The union's rules state that suspended members cannot contend elections.

Big business
Now the witch-hunt in the South West is spreading with even darker undertones. Nigel Behan and Pat Rowe, secretary and shop steward for Somerset branch, have respectively been suspended and sacked. Their crime was to fight the wholesale privatisation of council services in the region to IBM.

While local authorities and Somerset & Avon Police clearly prepared this underhand sell-off, activists know that Unison colluded in the machinations. Why? Because Unison has a sweetheart deal with IBM to have sole negotiating rights for its staff. Though who would want such a company-loyal “union” to represent them is another matter.

But at least Somerset branch has retained its right to organise. Newham branch in East London, which has 3,500 members, has been taken over by regional officials just eight weeks after a new set of officers were elected. Problem was, they were the wrong officers, left wingers not the pro-Labour slate the regional organiser wanted.

As a direct result, members have already lost rights to compassionate and sick leave, hundreds have received pay cuts due to job re-evaluations and single status deals and up to 600 face redundancy. In each case regional officers have failed to follow through on work started by the elected branch committee. The official reason for shutting down the branch was that its representatives were unable to function. The real reason was that the branch has been a thorn in the side of the Labour council.

Its previous branch secretary, Michael Gavan, was an SWP member and supporter of Respect, the then main opposition to Labour on Newham council. He was sacked - again on trumped up charges and with little support from Unison - only to be replaced by another SWP member. So now the branch committee has been closed down and Unison full-timers are handing over to the council every change in terms and conditions it wants.

Fightback launched
It is clear that the witch-hunt in Unison is bound up in Labour's electoral strategy: to hamper working class resistance to making it pay for the capitalist crisis. This not only involves Unison collaborating with employers in the sacking of activists, but also with the privatisation of jobs and services and the downgrading of members' pay and conditions.

A national meeting in Birmingham started a united campaign to combat the bureaucracy - with over 100 activists present from every region in England. The decision to put up a single left slate for every NEC post this year in Unison's elections is a welcome one. But this fightback must not rest content with contesting union elections. It must be combined with organising resistance to the employers and Labour's attacks this winter and next year.

And for that to be achieved we will need to develop a grassroots, rank and file movement capable of acting independently of the officials wherever it is necessary.