Dogs bark, organisers move on

On Thursday and Friday of last week, following weeks of planning and training, over 50 lay and employed UNISON organisers embarked on a major organising campaign in outsourced catering facilities in Sheffield. This work is part of the union’s 3 Companies project to organise workers in the target private services companies Compass, Sodexho and Aramark.

There is a sad irony in this week’s edition of Tribune (published at the same time as the organising campaign was taking place) reporting on an attempt by US union UNITE-HERE to undermine the 3 Companies initiative. It is a classic example of a newspaper responding to a contrived story like Pavlov’s Dog.

Tribune reports on recent correspondence sent by UNITE-HERE to UNISON regarding an inter-union dispute in the USA. The subject of the correspondence was entirely the same as issues discussed between UNISON and UNITE-HERE representatives when the two unions met at the latter’s request back in September. The dispute between the US unions was reported by Tribune in its post TUC congress edition.

But in order to pursue a domestic US conflict by proxy in Britain, UNITE-HERE sends an unsolicited letter to UNISON. With the connivance of an unprincipled individual UNITE-HERE obtains the personal email addresses of UNISON NEC members and mails them directly by-passing usual bilateral conventions between unions. The letter and the UNISON response is put in the public domain and, hey presto, we’re making news. So phoney you couldn’t make it up.
http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2009/11/06/unison-warned-over-co-operation-with-us-union/

For further reading on the background to the US dispute read:
http://unisonactive.blogspot.com/2009/09/anti-seiu-campaign-politics-of-envy-fed_21.html