Unite election loser makes bullying claim
THE man who lost the contest to lead Britain’s biggest trade union is challenging the result.
Gerard Coyne, who was defeated by Len McCluskey for the post of general secretary of Unite, claims his supporters were intimidated.
Coyne, who has been suspended from his job as a Unite regional officer, is to complain to the certification officer. He claimed: “The full weight of the union machine was used against me.”
But a Unite spokesman said: “Members will be deeply disappointed that Mr Coyne has chosen this critical moment in the fortunes of the labour movement to launch an unnecessary attack on his own union, something which can only help the floundering Tories.”
He added: “Unite is fully confident that the conduct of the general secretary election conformed to both the law of the land and the rules of the union.
“We will, of course, co-operate fully with the certification officer. PHYLLIS Logan has played everyone from aristocrats to servants.
She made her name starring as Lady Jane Felsham in Lovejoy and more recently moved downstairs as housekeeper Mrs Hughes in Downton Abbey.
But in her heart, the actress is a Paisley Buddie and as a former mill girl at J&P Coats, she is the perfect voice to narrate BBC documentary The Town that Thread Built.
The film traces the story of the firm from its birth in Scotland’s biggest town to world domination, becoming one of the first industrial multi-national companies.
There was, of course, a fall. Not for the company, who remain a vibrant commercial concern to this day, but for the town. Its major employer, once providing work for up to 12,000 people at its vast 50-acre Ferguslie and Anchor Mill sites, is long gone.
Phyllis, 61, worked there when she was a student at Glasgow’s Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, in the 70s.
She knew all about the mills and had a family connection. Her brother worked for J&P Coats and managed to get her a job as a cop winder, which was the process of transferring yarn to bobbins or cones.
She said: “I was born in Paisley and that makes me a Paisley Buddie. I was raised in Johnstone. My brother started off his career at Anchor Mills as a buyer and he managed to wangle me a little job there when I was a drama student. So I spent a summer at Anchor Mills being a cop winder.
“It was quite intensive but it was good fun. My cousin’s husband still works for J&P Coats, so we have a huge connection. Watching the footage of the old mills at Ferguslie was so impressive.
“When I used to go into Paisley from Johnstone on the bus, it was quite a sight. So it’s all very much part of my childhood.
“My student job there was in the 70s, so it was still the mainstay of Paisley. And so man
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