BEERG Newsletter - Unions: Unite – causes for concern

Unite is one of Britain’s largest unions. Stories have surfaced about the union in recent years – stories about how it handles its finances, about a police raid on one of its offices, about a union official under police investigation. Tortoise magazine reporter Xavier Greenwood has been looking into these stories. 

He started off investigating in London, where Unite has its headquarters, and Birmingham, where the union has been unable to explain how the cost of a hotel it was building went from an initial estimate of under £10 million to north of £100 million (the union has commissioned a lawyer to investigate it). 

But it wasn’t long before the story took him to Liverpool where a police investigation into alleged corruption is gathering evidence and has arrested a number of people.  You can listen to his report ‘Inside Unite: the union, Liverpool and the £100m hotel’. Here.