Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Great uncle James died at work... his story started my battle for worker rights
SHARON Graham was just eight when she learned of her great uncle’s death at work.
James Teah, 33, suffered a broken spine in a rock fall at a Durham pit in 1921.
The tragedy may have been decades earlier. But Sharon was upset about the impact it had on James’s wife and three children.
And the tragedy lit a fire inside Sharon – one that today burns as strong as ever and carried her to a momentous election last week as head of the Unite union.
With 1.4million members, mum-of-one Sharon, 52, is the most powerful woman in trade unions. She has the platform to demand better conditions for workers, her great uncle inspiring her every step of the way.
James’s family received a payout of £300, a miserly £15,000 in today’s money.
Sharon tells the Sunday Mirror: “It’s funny when you’re young, the stories you are told and you don’t realise when you’re listening and playing how much they shape you.
“He went out that morning to work, he didn’t come home and three children didn’t have a dad.
“What I realised as I got older was the disposability of a worker.
“Health and safety has changed, obviously, but I don’t think the disposability of workers has or how they’re looked upon or treated in a lot of environments.”
Sharon has dedicated a 30-year union career to workers’ rights.
As former head of Unite’s Organising and Leverage Department, she secured a deal to end a dispute over BA’s plans to fire and rehire cargo staff. She also led a high-profile pay dispute with Crossrail, as well as campaigning to unionise online giant Amazon.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has welcomed her appointment.
Unite is Labour’s biggest donor, providing millions annually.
PRECIOUS
But Sharon, who also plans to unionise hospitality and gig economy sectors, says she will put her members before politics. She says: “My priority is jobs, pay and conditions. It’s not that I don’t like going to Labour conferences, it’s that time is going to be precious and I’ve got to allocate it to what I think is important for the role. And that’s the workplace. “The difficulty we’ve had is that every time we’re mentioned the Labour Party comes in the next four words. That isn’t going to be what happens in future. Obviously I’m going to sit down with Keir Starmer, but conversations won’t be about Labour. Initial conversations will be about fire and rehire and what Labour is doing about that, aviation and automation.”
Sharon’s election came after a campaign in which she was subjected to gender-based abuse.
Supporters, including designer Dame Vivienne Westwood, urged her not to give up after trolls “fatshamed” her – posting a photo from when she was pregnant.
Others mocked up images of her as ex-Tory PM Margaret Thatcher and set up fake websites lying about her track record.
Sharon says: “Yes it was horrible, but it didn’t bring me down – quite the opposite. There were a huge amount of women – and men – emailing saying we need you to stand.
“Vivienne Westwood contacted me and she was saying ‘be strong’.
“My 12-year-old son saw some of it. He said ‘Mum, why are they attacking you when you just want to do good things for workers’?
“I had to sit down with him and
[explain that] the world is probably not as nice as you think it is. I’m a tough cookie. “When something like that happens, I think about how many workers go through lots of worse things.”
Sharon is the first woman to lead Unite. She secured 46,696 votes, while Steve Turner – outgoing leader Len McCluskey’s choice – netted 41,833 and Gerard Coyne got 35,334. McCluskey said her win “reaffirms her as the most formidable campaigning force in our movement”.
Sharon reveals the emotional moment – during a meeting about Amazon – when a convener rang to say victory was in the bag.
With a smile, she adds: “I rang my mum, who’s been lighting candles at mass during the entire election campaign. She started to cry, I nearly started to cry. On the day it was official they called to tell me the final count and my team were celebrating in the pub. They rang and said you’re definitely in – I said ‘Oh I know I’ve had that call, I’m just dealing with [a work matter].
“And they went ‘Is she working? Get to the pub!’”
DETERMINED
She did celebrate later at her parents’ home, joined by husband Jack and son Tom.
Growing up with three siblings in Hammersmith, West London – where she still lives – Sharon learned how to hold her own.
She recalls: “My brother was the eldest and I was the first girl so I did feel I had to mark my territory. Mum would say I’ve always been quite determined.”
Summers took her to Ireland, where her mum is from. Sharon started work at 16 and staged her first pay row walkout at 17 while a waitress in silver service.
“That’s the first time I realised the weight of argument won’t necessarily move an employer,” she says. “I was outraged. So I said just serve the first course the next day and not clear it and that’s what we did. Long story short, the issue was resolved.”
It was “a turning point in how I felt about injustices and how I was going to deal with those”.
At 27, she joined the TUC Organising Academy and a year later was made youth development officer for the Transport and General Workers Union. She called for universal benefits and won praise from ex-union boss Jack Jones, who died in 2009.
Sharon says: “I did a fringe meeting at the Labour conference and as I was speaking he was banging his stick. Afterwards he said to me, ‘Sharon, you have a really good gut instinct – stick to your gut’. For such a big figure, it was a big thing.
“I do think that a woman in any job always feels she has to be stronger, better, twice as good as a man to get her voice heard. I’m going to make it a lot better.”
Sharon says she will be more accessible to members. A hotline will take them through to her staff and she will stay on the first floor at Unite’s London HQ, rather than use Mr McCluskey’s seventhfloor suite.
She adds: “I want people to know that I’m a general secretary that will be in their workplaces, a lot of my time. We must be more focused on workplace and jobs, pay and conditions. Every morning when I wake up, that’s what I’m going to be thinking about.”
I’m a tough cookie... I’ll make things better for women in the workplace SHARON GRAHAM ON GENDER TROLLS & WORKERS’ RIGHTS