Senior officials in Unite trade union wanted to ‘do a deal’ with Brendan Ogle exit package, witness alleges at WRC

Senior officials in the Unite trade union wanted to “do a deal” with Brendan Ogle on an exit package so that he would not pursue a promotion to become regional secretary for the Republic of Ireland, a witness has told the Workplace Relations Commisison.

The witness told the tribunal that an approach was made last year by Peter Hughes, Unite’s regional secretary for Wales, who had been appointed to investigate a grievance brought by Mr Ogle complaining that he had been sidelined when he returned to work in 2022 after surviving a “very aggressive” cancer.

Giving evidence on Mr Ogle’s complaint under the Employment Equality Act 1998 yesterday, the former Mandate general secretary John Douglas confirmed that he told senior Unite officials at one point that he believed Mr Ogle had been “stripped naked in public” with “the dogs in the street barking that he’s a busted flush”.

“Brendan had one of the highest profiles of any trade union official in the country as leader of Right2Water; [he was] the leader of very many other campaigns, so to see Brendan being humiliated in the way he was after the way he came back from cancer to do the job he did on behalf of the working class… it was shoddy,” Mr Douglas said.

Mr Douglas, who represented Mr Ogle in an internal grievance process, said there was “sniding, between-the-lines” remarks to Mr Ogle about his position as senior officer in the Republic of Ireland being “a makey-up job” arranged with the union’s former general secretary Len McCluskey.

“There’s something going on here which smells to high heaven, whether it’s regime change, whether it’s cancer, whether it’s his face,” Mr McCluskey was recorded as saying in one document read into evidence by Mr Ogle’s barrister.

Mr Douglas gave an account of a videocall with Mr Hughes, the union’s Welsh secretary, after Mr Ogle applied for a vacancy as Republic of Ireland regional secretary. On the call, Mr Douglas said Mr Hughes told Mr Ogle: “There’s a lot of anxiety over here in head office about you applying for that job, and we’d prefer it if you didn’t go to the interview.”

Mr Hughes then went on to say: “Maybe we can do a deal,” Mr Douglas said. “It was hinting towards an exit package,” the witness added.

Mr Ogle attended the interview in London in November 2022 anyway, but did not succeed, the tribunal was told.

The complainant gave evidence earlier this year that he objected to the union’s former chairman Tony Woodhouse sitting on the interview panel because of a speech made by Mr Woodhouse to a union conference two months earlier which Mr Ogle claims defamed him.

The complainant’s position is that although Mr Woodhouse recused himself, the interview process was tainted.

Mr Douglas said after Mr Ogle was rejected for the job, they met Mr Hughes and the union’s head of HR, Barbara Kielim again in Unite’s London headquarters.

“It wasn’t a grievance meeting. It got into them wanting to table sort of an exit package. Brendan hadn’t really any interest in that.” Mr Douglas said.

Mr Ogle’s position was that he was concerned about losing a death-in-service policy worth five times his annual salary, expressing concerns about his family’s financial stability if his cancer came back, Mr Douglas said.

“It came up that to get an annuity for a death policy of five times the salary would be an extraordinary amount of money. It all got a bit messy,” Mr Douglas said. “We said put it in writing to us. They committed to put it in writing, we’re still waiting for that,” he said.

Mark Harty SC, instructed by Karyn Harty of Dentons Solicitors for the respondent, said Mr Douglas had referred to without prejudice discussions in his evidence, which was denied by the witness.

He put it to Mr Douglas in cross-examination that the duties Mr Ogle was seeking as a senior official in Ireland leading political campaigns and meeting with politicians “no longer existed”.

“No-one ever said that didn’t exist… no-one ever said there’s been a change in strategy, we don’t need that type of role any more,” Mr Douglas replied.

“It was like playing handball off a sponge, there was nothing coming back,” Mr Douglas said.

When Mr Harty asked the witness who took the political role from Mr Ogle, and Mr Douglas said he didn’t know, Mr Harty asked whether he followed politics.

“I follow football, but I couldn’t tell you who Man United won against last week,” Mr Douglas said.

“Brendan Ogle was very high-profile doing it,” Mr Harty said.

“To tell the truth, Unite’s not high-profile any more – it’s gone off the map,” the witness said.

“That might have been the intention… to focus on industrial relations within the union,” Mr Harty said.

“And shaft Brendan Ogle?” Mr Douglas retorted.

Counsel for the complaiant Mary-Paula Guinness BL, said that her instructing solicitor, Peter Murphy of McInnes Dunne Murphy, had written to Unite’s general secretary Sharon Graham on Tuesday asking her to attend voluntarily and give evidence.

Adjudicating officer Elizabeth Spelman said she would allow until Friday this week for Ms Graham to respond; after which she said she would hear an application by Ms Guinness for a witness summons.

The case was set to proceed into Wednesday and Thursday this week, but these dates have now been vacated.