After 4 recounts,Derek Simpson, a former communist is today selected leader of the Amicus union after beating Chief New Labour Toady, Sir Ken Jackson. T0here is now left wing leaders in many of the key unions in uk, whatever plp may think of having leaders, this has to be positive news and may finally sound the end of the retreat and the deathknell for Thatcherism,(rot in hell)

from the bbc

Blair ally loses union ballot


Sir Ken is seen as a key Blair union ally

A key union ally of Tony Blair has been defeated in his bid for re-election by a virtually unknown leftwinger.
Sir Ken Jackson, the former joint general secretary of Amicus and a staunch New Labour supporter, lost out to former communist Derek Simpson after a series of ballot recounts.

It's very much part of a trend and the government should be very worried and should be thinking hard about this

John Edmonds
GMB general secretary


Mr Simpson was ahead after three recounts of the ballot on Wednesday and was declared the winner after a fourth count on Thursday morning.

The result represents another setback for the government in its increasingly fraught relations with the trades unions.
Ahead of the ballot result being announced the GMB's John Edmonds said that the Amicus vote was part of a swing away from New Labour occurring across the union movement.
Mr Edmonds warned of disenchantment in the union movement

"Ken's difficulties are not a blip - it is not a one-off," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"In the last two years, every trade unionist who has won a major election has done it on the basis of expressing reservations about New Labour."It's very much part of a trend and the government should be very worried and should be thinking hard about this."

That viewpoint was dismissed by the Labour chairman of the Commons Trade and Industry select committee, Martin O'Neill.

He said: "I think Amicus is a one-off in the sense that here is a union in which a general secretary who is past retirement age is trying to bounce his members into supporting him."It's not in any way comparable with other situations."

Legal team

It is thought Sir Ken polled about 89,000 votes, compared with 88,200 for Mr Simpson, a Derby-based union official, in the first count.

Derek Simpson expects to win the election

But after three recounts on Wednesday, the result had gone the other way. Both men appointed an independent scrutineer to make sure the fourth count proceeded correctly.

Shockwaves
The news is a blow to Tony Blair, who counts Sir Ken as his closest ally in the trade union movement.

I will only do what the members of our union want me to do
Derek Simpson

It would also send shockwaves through the rest of the Labour movement, amid growing unrest in the unions.






Mr Simpson, who has been a Labour member for the past 10 years, has said he is not a "Blairite" but "not anti-Blair either".

He said he wanted parity with the eurozone on employment legislation and that he planned to press the government for legislation to protect pension schemes.

Mr Simpson said: "I will only do what the members of our union want me to do - not what I want to do, like Sir Ken who came up with an idea and then tried to force it through the union's mechanism."

Merger

Sir Ken reached the normal retirement age of 65 this year but wants to stay in his post until the end of 2004 to oversee the merger between the AEEU, and the MSF.

The two unions linked up earlier this year to form Amicus, which has a million members, mainly in manufacturing.

With this year's TUC conference fast approaching Labour needs all the friends it can muster in the union movement.

The Labour leadership has an increasingly fractious relationship the unions and a showdown particularly over the government's penchant for using private money in the public sector is widely predicted.