In 2022, Skwawkbox first exposed the attempts of Unite general secretary Sharon Graham – before she took the top job – to have evidence gathered by workers against her husband destroyed. Union staff had recorded four months’ worth of Jack Clarke’s bullying and misogyny, and the union had transcribed the recordings for its disciplinary investigation, which turned into a whitewash.
Unite responded by smearing Skwawkbox. Lawyers later – explosively – admitted the union had destroyed the evidence. But they insisted the recordings and transcripts showed no abuse by Clarke. Supposedly, they only showed him and others getting angry about the management team of Graham’s predecessor Len McCluskey. This claim persisted even though Skwawkbox revealed that Clarke had been on a final warning because of his conduct.
But the lawyers’ narrative was shredded in August 2026, when Maddison Wheeldon and Skwawkbox revealed the leaked transcripts showing details of Clarke’s bullying and misogyny toward staff. The leaks also exposed the union’s attempts to whitewash Clarke’s behaviour – and to silence the complainants, who were eventually paid off to cover up the case.
Sharon Graham of Unite: in her own words
Unite’s denials that Graham had been personally involved in the cover-up by requesting the destruction of the evidence were, frankly, bizarre. Unite claimed that, as Graham did not take over the whole union until 2021, she couldn’t have been involved. This ignored, clearly, her ability as a senior union official to try to have them destroyed – which is what Skwawkbox had reported all along. And the continued existence of the transcripts had proven that such attempts had not succeeded.
But now, a further leak puts the matter beyond doubt. Because it contains Graham, in her own words, trying to organise the destruction of the transcripts, discussing why she wanted them gone and attempting to orchestrate the cover-up against her husband’s unfortunate employees:
Hi – The problem with disciplinary is it makes the transcript public . Also I couldnt accept a move … jack feels he will be goaded etc. He has cause to think this . Maybe if we do it for 6 months instead of 12 ?
…On grievance best thing jack not to be interviewed . It is being dismissed on evidence and they are going . Him giving evidence brings in the transcripts…
If we get the grievances out of the way quickly we can move to finalising the insubordination . Also Steve will have the transcripts from Andrew so we need to ensure all parties advised to delete etc .
The leaks shows the now-general secretary of the union – who is supposed to stand up for Unite’s 800,000+ members in their workplace disputes – discussing covering up evidence against a manager who happens to be her husband. Worse, it shows her looking for ways to cut short their grievance complaint against him and get the aggrieved staff out.
And it confirms that, as Skwawkbox has reported all along, that Graham tried to get the evidence gathered by workers destroyed.
Let’s look at each key part in detail.
“The problem with disciplinary is it makes the transcript public”
Unite and its lawyers have persistently claimed the transcripts of the recordings only showed Clarke and staff complaining about the soon-to-be-outgoing management of Len McCluskey and his team. This pattern of deflection and finger-pointing is a classic ‘look over there’ deflection technique that Unite under Graham has frequently used.
Skwawkbox has already exploded Unite’s claim through leaks of the transcripts and staff. But the latest leak shows that Graham knew how damning the transcripts were – and how damaging to her own prospects of taking over after McCluskey. And she was desperate to avoid that.
“Also I couldn’t accept a move.”
Skwawkbox understands that one of the options examined by the McCluskey management was to move Clarke -to some remote backwater office where he would be out of the limelight. But Graham – who the union has admitted was already planning her bid to take over – “couldnt [sic] accept a move” that would affect her plans.
“Jack feels he will be goaded … Maybe if we do it for six months instead of 12?”
Skwawkbox understands that one of the likely options under consideration was a ‘suspended sentence’ in which Clarke would be sacked if he committed further abuses within twelve months. Clarke was worried his weak self-control would snap – and Graham wanted the suspended period shortened. Again, not something consistent with her campaign claims of being the ‘back to the workplace’ candidate who would put members’ workplace rights above everything – even above members’ resistance to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“On grievance best thing jack not to be interviewed”
Again, Graham shows how much she feared the evidence gathered by staff against Clarke:
Him giving evidence brings in the transcripts.
Unite’s Graham: “It is being dismissed on evidence and they are going”
A dossier sent to the union by one of the complainants documents his outrage at the union’s whitewash of Clarke’s behaviour. Most of the evidence he and colleagues had recorded didn’t even make it into the union’s final report on the complaint. What did make it into the complaint was unfounded smears against the complainants and attacks on their work performance that were demonstrably unfounded.
Worse still, the union was about to take disciplinary action against the complainants – though ultimately Unite, after Sharon Graham lobbied McCluskey, paid off the complainants to leave, rather than risk an employment tribunal that would expose all the evidence. Graham evidently knew this: “they are going”.
“Get the grievances out of the way quickly… move to finalising the insubordination”
Rather than stand up for the bullied workers, Graham wanted their grievance put to bed quickly. “Finalising the insubordination” has two possible meanings. One, part of the whitewash was to focus on Clarke’s criticism of McCluskey – and would feed nicely into her corruption claims against McCluskey and others in her election bid and for ever since.
Graham has now been general secretary for more than five years and is still repeating what McCluskey has condemned as “pages of smears and innuendo” – yet has still published no evidence and no one has been charged as a result of the supposed police investigation. Recently, Graham has diluted her claims to allegations that there “may have been wrongdoing”, but still no evidence.
The second possibility is even worse. The workers complained that the union was about to bring disciplinary charges against them because Clarke had put in a grievance that their recordings ‘entrapped’ him and were insubordinate. In this option, Graham wanted the Clarke disciplinary put to bed in order to get started on payback against the workers. While either is possible, the second scenario is just as consistent with the rest of the evidence.
And the grand finale:
“We need to ensure all parties advised to delete”
Again, Graham shows her fear of the transcripts – a fear inconsistent with the union’s attempts to dismiss them as showing something entirely different from what they have been shown to contain. And – shockingly for a supposed workers’ representative – she is explicit that she wants to “ensure” that anyone who has the evidence of abuse deletes it:
Also Steve will have the transcripts from Andrew so we need to ensure all parties advised to delete etc .
“Andrew” will be Murray – who was in charge of the disciplinary investigation into Clarke. “Steve” is not specified, but probably Turner – later Graham’s rival in the 2021 general secretary election. As he didn’t use the scandal in the election, presumably those copies were indeed destroyed.
Unite: denial destroyed
When contacted for comment, the union again responded through its lawyers. The lawyers demanded full information on who received the message from Graham and when. Skwawkbox will not, of course, reveal sources or any information that might allow whistleblower identities to be ‘jigsawed’. The lawyers also demanded more time to respond – another 21 hours.
The additional time was granted and has now expired. But consider: if you were asked about sending texts to have information destroyed in a scandal against your spouse – would you need time to decide whether you had ever done so? Or would you be able to deny immediately? Assuming you hadn’t done so, of course.
When the official statement finally came in – after the agreed deadline – it contained a regurgitation of Unite’s previous smears and deflection, with a demand to publish every word. The Canary is under no obligation to repeat and amplify defamation of others. You can read the original statement Unite provided us here.
In the only point of relevance to this article, the statement did not deny that Graham had sent the message asking for the destruction of evidence and plotting against the complainants.
What Unite did add to its original statement provided to us on 12 August for a previous article was the following (bolding by us):
In that context the publication of these highly selective extracts from covert recordings in breach of individuals’ privacy rights is clearly just another factional attempt by The Canary and Skwawkbox to attack the current leadership of Unite. A further example of this is your latest threat to publish an undated message extract without naming those involved. It is clear that none of the text in the extract you provide does anything to support the false allegations made by the employee and repeated by Skwawkbox and Canary…
It seems clear that the loss of power in Unite by this faction, following successive decisive defeats at the Unite internal ballot box, has led to an increasingly desperate scorched earth strategy by a small group of their defenders to damage the union. The recent publications and threats are clearly part of that. It will no longer be tolerated.
Despite Graham spending millions on legal actions, Unite has never sued in almost four years of Skwawkbox reporting this anti-worker behaviour – with a legal limit of one year to do so before the reporting, and quoting of it, becomes unsuable. Legal action, by the by, would entitle Skwawkbox to full disclosure of Unite’s records and communications – and carry penalties of perjury for lying about what happened.
Meanwhile, Clarke was promoted under Graham to run a department she had just created – where his conduct triggered further complaints, especially from women, and even strike action. Unite then – again – targeted the striking workers taking action against Clarke.
And now the destruction of evidence matter is settled – in Graham’s own words, with more still to come.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
