In the next few weeks the Usdaw membership has the opportunity to reclaim their Union from a right wing Blairite leadership. The General Secretary Sir Bill Conner must retire under union rules and an election is immanent to appoint his successor. There are three contenders for this vitally important position including the Broad Left candidate Maureen Madden. As a vastly experienced activist, Maureen has led the fight to ensure that the membership controls the union rather than highly paid officials. If elected, she intends to bolster the democratic content of the Union’s Rule Book and to eradicate spin, control freakery and any other practice designed to either manufacture consent or suppress dissent. She also rejects the current leaderships slavish obedience to the New Labour project, “I aim to be a leader whose prime concern will be to advance our member’s pay and conditions – not to work for knighthoods and peerages”. The Retail membership of Usdaw includes some of the lowest paid workers in Britain today. Maureen is committed to transforming Usdaw into a Union that fights and campaigns directly, and as a priority, to eradicate such disgraceful wages. As she points out, in an industry that offers a profits bonanza to bosses and major shareholders why should Union-Company partnership agreements be signed that give some directors 12% pay rises while accepting 2.9% for the membership. Maureen is most worried that the leadership’s unquestioning Blairite policy loyalty and political agenda is already isolating Usdaw within the TUC. There is no doubt that the election of the right wing continuity candidate John Hannet or the non-political Val Pugh would mean the loss of any little influence the Union still has. Activists within Usdaw recognise that the Election of Maureen Madden is the only hope for a democratic and fighting Union.