Reflections on organising in the retail sector

After this year’s USDAW conference David L looks back on his experience working for the union.

In an interview with the Morning Star at the 2025 USDAW annual conference, soon to retire General Secretary Paddy Lillis stated that he was leaving on a high, saying ‘he was only stepping back after reversing the devastating 77,000 decline in the retail union’s membership during the Covid-19 pandemic and because of his confidence in Sir Keir Starmer’s government.’ He also ‘defended his approach of being a ‘critical friend’ to Labour’, stating that contrary to the opinions of some, he had taken the fight to the employers, referencing how the ‘Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favour of USDAW’s case that Tesco cannot use fire-and-rehire tactics to circumvent retained pay agreements’ (though I couldn’t help but notice he also described it as ‘One of the toughest decisions I had to take’ and emphasised that ‘We want businesses to do well’ in a speech at the conference). In my opinion, this narrative of Lillis’ tenure as General Secretary is incomplete and overly flattering, a fiction that ignores some of the ways Lillis had responded to workers organising, in particular in his own union. I was an USDAW worker on strike during the dispute in 2022/23, and I gained a much different impression of Lillis during that time.

The dispute started like this: around September 2022 USDAW staff represented by GMB began strike action having unanimously rejected a pay offer of 3.5 per cent. I came in shortly before the second round of pickets in October/November time, having recently been employed by the union as an administrative worker. As I sat down for a brief meeting with my line manager/supervisor a week into my employment, they mentioned the dispute. To their pleasant surprise I told them I had already joined.

Most of the workers who had rejected the recent pay offer acted out of no such militancy. One was quoted by Novara media:

‘Barely any of us have ever taken action before and I think most of us hoped we wouldn’t have to’.

‘None of us want to strike. We really hoped, and still do, that USDAW would talk to us and reach an agreement on what we’re asking for.’

For a lot of workers hybrid working, the ability to work from home at least some of the week was an important part of the claim. During the pandemic it became clear that with today’s technology infrastructure and software most office workers could work from home. Nobody I spoke to was looking for 5 days a week out of the office – what they wanted was some flexibility in order to deal with other demands in their life, as well the strain of commuting. 

The two men who were leading the GMB Branch (I’ll call them Saul and Mike for purposes of privacy; I’ll also make clear for their sake that this is my own recollection) had written up a presentation focusing on the benefits of implementing hybrid working, showing how it could increase productivity for the USDAW union and help it be more efficient. Saul, Mike and other members of the branch had only ever wanted to help the union, and the  demand was made with USDAW’s interests in mind.

Paddy Lillis disparaged the striking staff, stressing that the ‘dispute involved fewer than 100 of the union’s 400 staff, and that two other internal organisations had agreed to the union’s pay offer.’ He said he ‘was ‘absolutely livid’ with the GMB organisers, arguing that the discussions over home working should have been separated from those about pay. 

Lillis’s arguments were misleading. The GMB had never proposed these changes as an immediate alteration to the contract, what they wanted was  agreement to discuss it and create a plan for future implementation. On top of that, Lillis made a big point of how ‘self-indulgent’ the strike was, when compared to the living conditions of USDAW’s members: ‘Some of them can’t even afford to buy food in their own supermarket, and we’re going on strike when we’re all well paid with good terms and conditions, as you’d expect from a trade union.’

The immediate effect of Lillis’s statement was dismay and demoralization. As one of the strikers put it to Novara:

‘The majority of people taking part in this action are long serving USDAW staff, who have been left devastated by these recent developments.’

Another stated, 

‘It’s a real shame management are pitting USDAW staff against USDAW members. At the end of the day, we’re all workers and trade unionists who want better terms and conditions for all. Surely, you’d think USDAW would want to be the driving force of that?’ 

In conversations with colleagues and comrades, the prevailing mood was that the internal culture of the trade union had changed, that something was different, and it was for the worse. Speculations about the reasons behind Lillis’ response abounded. Nobody really believed that Lillis or the rest of the Union leadership were doing this purely so they could focus on fighting for their members’ interests.

Lillis’ contention that he was more interested in fighting for his ‘low paid’ members was contradicted by reality – USDAW was one of the main unions utilising ‘partnership deals’. Many of the big unions use recognition deals and sometimes use them to undermine grassroots organising. USDAW’s partnership deals were often on a different level altogether. 

Many supermarket workers didn’t take part in the ‘Hot Strike Summer’ of 2022. Despite representing around 360,000 members, USDAW’s deals were structured to favour the large supermarket chains. When Morrisons made an offer, USDAW officially endorsed it – despite not having consulted with their members beforehand. This pissed off a lot of union members, even some long-standing ones. When it came to a ballot, the members overwhelmingly rejected it. So that would lead to a strike, surely? Not for USDAW. The partnership deal meant that consultation would go to ACAS, for arbitration. The opinion of union members and some of the staff I worked with, was that ACAS would endorse the offer, and members would have to accept it. The same thing had happened in 2019, when members had been forced to swallow a measly 30p pay increase. 

From what other staff in the union told me, this put USDAW in a vicious cycle – it would have periods where it gained membership, usually the Christmas season when temporary staff were recruited, and the end of summer, when students were looking for work. Higher turnover in supermarkets was often compounded by anger and despair as poor pay rises were accepted on their behalf and the union would haemorrhage members quickly. The leadership was so concerned at securing membership dues that it didn’t see partnership deals as a problem. Which is not to say the union was entirely cynical; some of the management staff clearly did believe in the partnership approach, and the more likeable and charismatic of the leadership, such as Deputy General Secretary Dave McCrossen, could even make it sound like common sense and a sound strategy.

So, Lillis’ putting of workers against staff was disingenuous and misleading. During my time working for USDAW the leadership could be incredibly ruthless. When our union branch decided to strike for a half-day, they locked us out and deducted us a full day’s pay. Their attitude to the hybrid working proposal was similar to many employers – whether it increased productivity was not the point; having workers in the office and under their control was. Faced with the embarrassment of being picketed by their own staff, the union engaged in an absurd act of hypocrisy. On the days of the picket, they told staff to work from home, showing that it could be done and that the infrastructure for it already existed. We came out to the picket line, and took a picture outside the office, with Saul knocking on the door to see if Paddy was inside.

On the picket line I spoke to comrades outside my department and learnt about a range of other frustrations. Despite being a member of the TUC anti-racist taskforce Lillis dragged his feet when staff requested that USDAW organise around Black History month. In fairness, the Union has set up a Breaking Down Barriers programme for black reps since 2023, but it’s important to note that this comes from the TUC pushing for such programmes across the country. My conversations with comrades suggested that ideas and requests coming from the bottom up were ignored.

How did the GMB support us during the strike? We would often have an organiser in the meeting with us, and when we asked for support, the response was often a blunt refusal, telling us that we were the ones organising and that it was our responsibility to win the dispute. 

I watched as Saul raised the fact that our dispute was not on the GMB website. He got the same response as anybody else, it was our dispute, and we couldn’t rely on them to win it for us. The USDAW leadership demoralised workers to an extent, but the approach of the GMB demoralised them even further. Despite a willingness to fight, especially by members in the Glasgow office, the union seemed content not to get involved. 

In conversations with other staff members, I learnt that GMB was unwilling to go public about this dispute, because they didn’t want to be seen as disparaging another trade union. We had to wage our struggle in relative obscurity. It soon became apparent, to many members’ dismay, that the GMB didn’t really care if we won the dispute. In fact, if we lost it, it might even be better, because that represented more of a chance of smoothing relations over. There was talk that GMB and USDAW were in discussions to merge in the long term. Using any kind of militant or fighting rhetoric would damage that prospect. Why would two unions need to merge? Was it out of any shared principles or strategy? Not really, as I understood it: it was more there were worries over declining membership and income. 

You often encounter the same call for silence to avoid disrupting long-term aims. Don’t say this, don’t talk about that. Don’t criticise this person out loud, don’t write anything about them. Even our GMB branch felt obligated to operate by these principles. In some ways, this was understandable, because you don’t want to talk shit so much that you can’t negotiate, especially if you don’t have much leverage. But it was clear this didn’t go both ways. Paddy Lillis could talk to the press about us as much as he wanted, and we had no right of reply. At one point, he called all the union staff into a large meeting room, and spent the best part of an hour denigrating the dispute. When one young worker raised her hand and asked about hybrid working, Lillis basically dismissed her question out of hand and assumed she was asking because of her kids (for the record, the worker did not have children, and made no mention of any such thing in the question).

Frederick Lassalle once said that ‘All political [pettiness] consists in concealing and cloaking that which is.’ It was in this dispute that I saw such pettiness put into action. The needs and demands of workers were deferred to a larger goal or future. Bit by bit, the struggle, which I joined enthusiastically, began to die. Faced with a ruthless boss mentality in USDAW, and with a complete lack of support or interest from GMB, my fellow workers began to lose confidence. The interventions in meetings by the GMB organiser demoralised people. With hindsight, I wonder if that was their intention.

After the second round of strike days, people questioned whether we should go on. Mike put out a poll to gauge whether people wanted to go on more strikes, and if they wanted to escalate. The response was overwhelmingly negative, and so he cancelled the dates, and called off the strike. The union leadership had won. We could content ourselves with a 3.5 per cent pay rise that was already agreed on – or rather my colleagues could content themselves. Shortly after the strike ended, I was called in by my department manager and told that I was being made redundant. 

Much is made of Antonio Gramsci’s ‘pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.’ But to truly have that kind of approach, such pessimism needs to be lived; it needs to be earned. And often there is only one way to learn it – through defeat. Once you learn to push through the horrible emotions an experience like that instill in you, you can commit yourself to the struggle in the long term, and the things which once made you well and truly despair start dull in their intensity. In 2019 I learnt the art of it, and I didn’t look back. But you have got to get through it the first time it happens, which is always the worst, and I don’t begrudge anyone who can’t. Towards the end of my employment, I spoke to my line supervisor, the one who had initially mentioned the dispute to me. She said she was probably going to cancel her GMB membership. In the eyes of many of my comrades, I could see that a long-held belief and faith in the trade union movement was broken and would likely never be repaired. All thanks to USDAW and their collaborators in the GMB union.

After my redundancy, I decided to take a sabbatical and devote time and effort to other activist organisations. A month or two after I left, the GMB branch invited me to a social. We caught up on the goings on, people thanked me for putting my neck on the line as a new staff member, and we had a good time. As I left I gave my apologies, said goodbye, swapped numbers and then got one of the last trains out of Manchester. I never saw them again.