Steve Pinder - The Truth Hinderer?

Dear Steve,

Re: Unite governance, blacklisting evidence, the restriction of my correspondence and your outstanding response

On 15 September 2026, you told me that Unite’s head of IT had been asked to alter the system so that my emails could reach you. On 16 September you confirmed by WhatsApp:

“I have had several emails released to me from the last couple of days which I will review, hopefully later today.”

Four weeks have now passed without a substantive response. Nor have you sent even a brief email or WhatsApp message asking for more time. That does not prove what you intend, but it provides no indication that you are addressing these serious matters. I also cannot assume that you have read my subsequent published material unless you confirm that you have.

I have repeatedly sent evidence and questions about blacklisting to General Secretary Sharon Graham, to you and to members of Unite’s elected Executive Council (EC) since 2021. Yet, because of Unite’s email restrictions, I cannot establish who actually received or considered what I sent.

Those restrictions began in October 2024, without warning and without my knowledge. I discovered them through a Subject Access Request (SAR) in April 2025. I was given no Rule 27 disciplinary charge, hearing or opportunity to answer the allegations used to justify this treatment. Only in September 2026 did you say my communications “would have amounted to unlawful harassment”; you have still not provided the particular communications or evidence requested in my letter of 14 September.

If my conduct is as unacceptable as you have only recently claimed, why does Unite continue to collect my membership subscriptions every month while restricting my effective access to its elected leadership?

Your responsibilities as Legal Director

You are Unite’s Director of Legal and Membership Services and a solicitor, not merely an external adviser dealing with an isolated claim. The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s guidance, Reporting concerns about wrongdoing when working in-house (updated 2 June 2026), describes the importance of independent advice, internal escalation and addressing possible legal or regulatory risks. I do not suggest that every disagreement raises a reporting duty or that your professional client is anyone other than Unite.

I am not asking you to disclose privileged advice or pretending to know the terms of your employment. I am asking which of my documented concerns you have assessed, recorded or escalated, to whom, and with what outcome. If particular matters fall outside your responsibility, please identify who has responsibility and what steps you have taken to refer them.

The Executive Council is not an optional audience

Rule 14.9 of Unite’s March 2024 Rule Book vests the government, management and control of the union collectively in the EC. Rules 14.9.1 and 14.9.2 address financial records and special audits; Rule 14.9.5 concerns officers’ accountability to lay committees; Rule 14.9.6 requires the EC to consider appeals and resolutions addressed to it. Rule 14.11.1 excludes appeals and resolutions from the powers delegated to the General Secretary between EC meetings.

Unite’s guidance for lay-member complaints also provides for quarterly reports to the EC about complaints, their outcomes and timescales. Were my written complaints registered, investigated and included in those reports? If not, why not?

The October 2024 internal correspondence disclosed under my SAR shows a request to block my email account from almost every Unite account, apart from a specified exception. Communications addressed to elected EC members and senior officials could therefore be diverted without my knowing. Your own September 2026 correspondence showed that the restriction could still prevent even you from reading my email.

I believe there is a serious question whether the restrictions were deliberately intended to stop my evidence reaching the EC and other senior officials, including people who were critical of Sharon Graham during a period of internal divisions. I do not present that motive as proved. I put the question to you directly: was that the purpose, in whole or in part? Who proposed, authorised, maintained or knew about the restrictions? Were EC members told that correspondence addressed to them was being withheld or diverted? Who read the diverted messages, and what was forwarded on?

If that concern is unfounded, I ask for a factual account of why the restrictions were imposed, what material was considered, who made the decisions and whether the elected EC members concerned were informed. An agreed practical channel through your office cannot make you the gatekeeper deciding what elected members may see.

There is also a transparency problem which affects every Unite member, not just me. The latest EC minutes published on Unite's website are dated March 2023. Earlier published minutes show that Sharon Graham briefed the EC in December 2021 about changing Thompsons' control of Unite evidence because of a perceived conflict of interest, and that you yourself updated the EC on blacklisting in September 2022. But they disclose little about contracts, cost, the reasons for appointments or safeguards. Who authorised the apparent cessation of publication after March 2023, and why? What further reports, decisions and underlying papers on the blacklisting inquiries have gone to the EC since? The recorded minutes refer to supporting documents circulated to and filed with the Council; please identify those relevant here.

The inquiries: 2017, 2019 and the present investigation

The current inquiry is not Unite’s first attempt to address allegations about blacklisting and union-official conduct. An investigation was announced in 2017, although I have yet to see evidence establishing what work, if any, followed. Thompsons Solicitors were formally instructed in 2019, a further QC-led inquiry was publicly identified in 2021, and the present arrangements began in 2022. These may have been connected or successive commissions. What happened to the evidence, the findings and the accountability promised to members?

On 25 October 2019, Richard Arthur of Thompsons Solicitors confirmed in writing that Unite had instructed the firm to gather evidence for an independent Queen’s Counsel. He confirmed that the investigation extended to the suppression of blacklisting information by union officers or officials, past or present. He also said the circumstances surrounding Unite’s 2018 treatment of my David Craggs material would be investigated. On 12 November 2019 he assured me:

“The investigation will be full and transparent...”

Was the investigation announced in 2017 ever conducted, and by whom? For the 2019 commission, who was the proposed independent QC, was that barrister instructed, what evidence was gathered, and were any findings produced? What became of the work, what was it paid for, who received any conclusions, and what records or outstanding issues were passed to the subsequent inquiry?

On 10 August 2021, Jane McNeill QC was publicly identified as heading the inquiry, with Thompsons gathering evidence. In December 2021, Unite's Legal Department still directed me to Thompsons at BlacklistingInquiry@thompsons.law.co.uk (reference L213003/RH). At the December 2021 EC meeting, Sharon Graham reported that Thompsons would no longer control which evidence from Unite entered the inquiry, to avoid any perceived conflict of interest, but would continue taking witnesses' accounts. In March 2022 Unite announced Nick Randall QC and John Carl Townsend as the new investigators; contemporaneous announcements said Thompsons' evidence-gathering work had continued. Why did Jane McNeill's appointment end, what was the precise perceived conflict, and was 2021 a continuation of the 2019 commission or a replacement? Where are the earlier reports, findings, or explanations for there being none? On 6 April 2022 I also forwarded my correspondence raising these issues to Paul Heron at PILC. What consideration did PILC give to it?

Since 2024, members have repeatedly been reassured that the current report was at or near its “final stages”. On 31 July 2026 the inquiry team announced that a significant new line of inquiry required further examination. I acknowledge the team’s assurance that its unfinished report had not been shared with Unite or suppressed. Nevertheless, after repeated promises and delays, members are entitled to a proper account of the timetable and work undertaken.

An independent inquiry must be allowed to work independently. But it cannot relieve Unite’s leadership or EC of responsibility for financial oversight, treatment of members, handling of evidence, conflicts of interest or internal governance. Rather than direct me back to the current inquiry, please answer those matters for which Unite itself is accountable.

Why the earlier treatment of my evidence matters

On 3 February 2016, during the High Court Blacklisting Litigation, barrister Anthony Hudson QC wrote about Unite’s position on using my evidence:

“Unite are not convinced about the merits of relying / being seen to rely on him. He is perceived as unpredictable.”

The same correspondence continued:

“The risk of him giving damaging evidence on limitation and making accusations about union activity probably outweighs the potential benefits of serving a witness summary.”

John Carl Townsend, later appointed to the current inquiry team, was copied into that correspondence. Being copied does not establish that he agreed with it or subsequently acted improperly. It does establish a historical connection with Unite's recorded reservations about my evidence and my allegations of union collusion. Before his appointment in March 2022, who assessed whether his prior involvement gave rise to an actual or perceived conflict of interest? Was the correspondence disclosed to those deciding the appointment and to the EC, and what safeguards, if any, were recorded?

Consider the sequence: recorded reservations about my evidence in 2016, internal allegations and instructions to ignore me over subsequent years, the October 2024 email restriction, and your defence of that restriction in 2026. My concern is that discrediting the person supplying the evidence has become a substitute for answering it. I want the EC to examine that pattern independently of whatever findings the current inquiry eventually publishes.

Section 30 accounts: £1,555,024.56 and unanswered questions

The accounting information provided to me under section 30 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 records £1,555,024.56, including VAT, in costs identified with the blacklisting inquiries. The codes in those records do distinguish PILC payments from Nick Randall’s costs. I am not suggesting otherwise, and I am not presenting the total as PILC expenditure.

The records supplied begin with identifiable postings in May 2022. They do not show separately identifiable expenditure for the 2017 or 2019 announcements, or for the Thompsons/Jane McNeill QC arrangements that were in place by 2021. The last posting is in January 2026 in respect of December 2025 work, while the inquiry team later reported its significant new line of investigation in July 2026.

There may be legitimate explanations: earlier costs could have been charged to another budget, covered by a retainer, or not billed; 2026 work may not yet have been invoiced. But the absence of identifiable entries requires reconciliation, not assumption. Was Thompsons paid under its 2019 and 2021 instructions, and was Jane McNeill QC paid? If so, how much, when and under which codes or budgets? What work took place in 2026, by whom, and where was it charged or accrued? Which spending and appointment decisions were reported to or approved by the EC, and has it considered using its Rule 14.9.2 powers?

Suzanne Muna, PILC and the need to account for safeguards

In my correspondence of 15 January 2025 I raised Suzanne Muna's connections with the Public Interest Law Centre (PILC), instructed for the current inquiry in March 2022. The chronology now demands a specific explanation. Muna served on Unite's EC from 2015 to 2020, encompassing the announced 2017 investigation and the 2019 Thompsons instruction. She became a director of Public Interest Law Centre Ltd on 11 September 2020 and was identified by PILC itself as chair of the charity's trustees in April 2021 and again in May 2022. She was therefore chair when PILC was engaged.

Muna publicly campaigned for Sharon Graham in July 2021 while holding those PILC positions. On X, on 8 July 2021, she wrote, 'I voted Sharon Graham as a visionary candidate,' with a photograph of her ballot paper; on 20 July she urged members to vote for Graham. She was re-elected to Unite's EC in May 2023 while still a PILC trustee, and publicly endorsed Graham again in July 2026. These facts do not establish that her support influenced PILC's appointment or that she acted improperly. They do require answers: who selected and authorised PILC, what other providers or procurement arrangements were considered, and was this history disclosed and independently assessed? Once she returned to the EC, were any interests, recusals or other safeguards recorded concerning inquiry oversight, contracts or expenditure? Who received my January 2025 concerns, and what followed?

The David Craggs blacklists and the workers who may still be affected

In December 2024 I supplied you with unredacted David Craggs blacklist material containing the names of more than 200 construction workers in the North West, including Liverpool and Manchester. I had previously received Unite’s October 2018 letter asking me to remove references to Mr Craggs after his complaint about what I had published.

Did Unite establish which workers were affected, which were members, whether they were contacted or offered assistance and whether these lists were compared with other blacklisting material? What action followed the 2019 undertaking to investigate Unite’s 2018 handling of the matter?

The workers may have suffered damage to their livelihoods and may still be suffering if those lists continue to circulate. I do not claim to have proved that they are still circulating. That is a question Unite should investigate, not dismiss. These are people, not historical entries in an inquiry file.

I have never blacklisted a worker. What evidence does Unite say it has?

My connection with Ian Kerr was limited to one brief meeting. I have never blacklisted anyone. On the contrary, I have devoted approximately twenty years to uncovering blacklisting and seeking justice for the workers affected by it. Those are not the actions of a blacklister.

Yet internal Unite material released through my SAR contains allegations and descriptions circulated behind closed doors over many years. In 2016, one internal email called me a “blacklister who got blacklisted”. Other material instructed recipients to ignore or not engage with my correspondence. On 7 October 2024 an EC member wrote: “This man is dangerous and defaming my character.” These examples are documented statements; they do not establish that every official held the same view.

Their cumulative effect, in my view, has been: 'This is the bogeyman - do not listen to him.' That is my characterisation of a pattern, not a quotation attributed to one person. It describes how serious evidence can be diverted from scrutiny by attacking its source.

Sharon Graham herself condemned Birmingham City Council in July 2025 as 'a rogue council that has peddled lies and smeared its workers fighting huge pay cuts' (Unite Live, 11 July 2025). If such treatment of workers by an employer is unacceptable, why should serious allegations circulated about a union member within Unite go unanswered or uncorrected? I ask you to apply the same standard to the documented statements made about me.

Does Unite possess any evidence whatsoever that I blacklisted a single worker? If so, name the worker, identify the alleged conduct, give the date and disclose the evidence relied upon. If not, will you acknowledge that there is no evidential basis for portraying me as a blacklister, identify how those descriptions came to circulate, and explain what will be done to correct the record?

Your September allegation and the correspondence I intend to publish

On 14 September 2026 you described my communications as highly abusive and unreasonable and said my conduct “would have amounted to unlawful harassment”. I wrote back the same day asking you to identify the offending communications and explain the allegation. I have received no particulars. This is a distinct accusation from the older suggestions of blacklisting; I do not accuse you of originating those earlier statements. But, in my view, your recent words add to the same damaging picture of my character.

I intend shortly to publish the relevant internal statements made about me over the past decade, with their dates and context, and to publish your September 2026 correspondence alongside them. I will check the source documents and handle any necessary redactions before doing so. You have an opportunity now to substantiate or correct your own comments and to identify the evidence, if any, supporting Unite’s historical allegations.

A union is entitled to take proportionate steps to protect staff and members from genuine abuse or harassment. The question is what actually happened here: no prior warning to me, no Rule 27 process, no chance to answer, restricted access to elected representatives and continuing subscription payments. I do not assert that every technical email restriction is automatically an unlawful disciplinary measure. I ask you to explain the legal and constitutional basis for this one, and its purpose and effect.

Imagine an employer receiving evidence of dangerous scaffolding, calling the worker a troublemaker and preventing the safety committee from seeing the complaint. We would challenge that. If Unite can restrict one paying member’s communications to elected representatives without proper notice or scrutiny, what safeguards protect others raising uncomfortable concerns?

The human cost - and what I am asking for

The home I owned when I worked for Carillion was recently advertised for sale for more than £500,000. Today I own no property or significant assets. You are acutely aware of my financial circumstances and long-term unemployment, having personally assisted me with my Employment Tribunal claims against Halfords and Marks & Spencer.

In 2005, the union promised to support me in exposing the blacklisting evidence I had uncovered. I came forward on that assurance, only to find myself left without the support I had been promised.

For more than twenty years, I have continued trying to expose the truth, despite the considerable personal and financial consequences. All I have received in return is a constant smear on my character and good name.

I have consistently sought correction, an apology where appropriate, and accountability, not financial compensation. My financial circumstances and my determination to be heard must not be used to avoid answering the evidence or to lend credibility to allegations about me.

A full response is required; these are the immediate priorities

I require a full and substantive response to every matter raised in this open letter. No outstanding question is withdrawn, abandoned or set aside. As a matter of priority, please answer the following questions first. These largely concern Unite’s own records and decisions; they should not have to await the current inquiry report.

1. Your September undertaking: Which emails were released to you after 15-16 September 2026? Which did you read, to whom were they referred, and what action followed? Why has there not even been a holding reply?

2. The email restrictions and their purpose: Who authorised and maintained the October 2024 restrictions, what records justified them, who saw diverted messages, and was keeping evidence from EC members or critics of the General Secretary part of the purpose? What reliable channel to elected representatives is available now?

3. What reached the EC, and where are its minutes: Which of my complaints and supporting documents reached Sharon Graham and elected EC members, on what dates, and through what process? Were they recorded under the lay-member complaints procedure and reflected in quarterly reports? Why are the latest published EC minutes dated March 2023, who decided to stop or suspend publication, and how can members examine the decisions of their representatives?

4. The allegations about me: Name any worker Unite says I blacklisted, with date, act and evidence, or explain how the false characterisation will be corrected. Identify the communications and factual basis for your own September 2026 “unlawful harassment” statement.

5. The earlier lawyers, reports and expenditure: What work was done under the 2017 announcement and Thompsons' confirmed October 2019 instructions? What became of the inquiry led by Jane McNeill QC in 2021, and why did the arrangements change to Randall and Townsend in March 2022? Were Thompsons and McNeill paid, and where are those costs recorded if not identifiable in the Section 30 accounts supplied? What evidence transferred, what conflicts were assessed (including Townsend's 2016 correspondence), what approvals were given, and where are any 2026 investigative costs? The existing records already distinguish PILC and Randall payments.

6. PILC, the EC and worker protection: Who selected PILC, who approved the contract and what assessment considered Suzanne Muna's prior EC role, her PILC directorship and trusteeship, and her public support for Sharon Graham? What declarations, recusals or safeguards were recorded during her overlapping EC and PILC roles? What happened when I supplied the Craggs lists, and what has been done to identify, notify or protect affected workers and examine possible continuing circulation?

7. Your own escalation and responsibilities: Without disclosing privileged advice, what have you done as Legal Director to ensure these matters were considered by those responsible for governance, membership, legal risk and the elected EC?

Publication, accountability and the route to elected members

You have helped me personally in the past, and I have acknowledged that assistance publicly. I do not raise these questions out of personal hostility. But that history does not remove your present responsibility to answer them.

I intend to make this open letter public when it is sent, and to provide it to interested members, blacklisted workers, journalists and others who have followed the evidence. I will consider any supported substantive response or correction fairly.

If you and Sharon Graham do not give substantive answers, I intend to pursue a formal means of putting these matters directly before the elected EC, consistent with Rules 14.9.6 and 14.11.1, through a route by which receipt and consideration can be established. That is an additional safeguard, not an alternative to your response.

After the 2017 and 2019 investigations, repeated assurances since 2024 that the present report was in its “final stages”, and years of unanswered questions, it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to see the handling of these issues as anything other than a continuation of the very cover-ups these inquiries were supposed to expose. I state that as my assessment of the history, not as a finding that a coordinated cover-up has been proved. If I am wrong, Unite’s leadership has every opportunity to demonstrate why - by providing substantive answers and the records supporting them.

The workers named on these lists deserve the truth while they are still here to receive it. So do the members whose union is responsible for protecting them.

The person who raised the alarm - a final consideration

For all the detailed rules, correspondence, legal appointments and accounts in this letter, consider in ordinary language what has happened to the person who has tried to expose trade union involvement in blacklisting since 2012:

• In the High Court blacklisting litigation I was wrongly portrayed as a major blacklister associated with Skanska. No worker I supposedly blacklisted has been identified to me.
• The 2016 barrister correspondence recorded Unite’s reluctance to call me as a witness, in part because I might raise allegations about union activity.
• Over the following decade, damaging descriptions of me as a blacklister, a troublemaker and a dangerous individual circulated within the union, rather than the underlying evidence being properly answered.
• After pursuing my own blacklisting claim against Balfour Beatty through a preliminary hearing towards a five-day hearing in 2017, I encountered internal instructions to regional offices to ignore my requests for legal assistance.
• In 2018, Unite regional official Ritchie James warned me to remove references to the David Craggs blacklists - lists involving more than 200 North West mechanical and electrical workers.
• One blacklisting inquiry after another was announced. Thompsons and independent barristers were instructed, the arrangements changed, and no report from the earlier commissions has been made available to me. Their costs cannot be identified in the Section 30 records supplied.
• I raised documented questions about independence and possible conflicts of interest in the inquiry arrangements, but have still not received a substantive account of the relevant assessments and safeguards.
• In October 2024 Unite restricted emails I addressed to senior officers and elected EC members without telling me. I discovered the restrictions only through my April 2025 Subject Access Request.
• No Rule 27 charge or hearing followed, and I was given no opportunity to answer the allegations, even as Unite continued collecting my monthly membership subscriptions.
• In September 2026 you characterised my communications as conduct that “would have amounted to unlawful harassment”, without subsequently identifying the communications supporting that allegation when asked.

The person trying to expose blacklisting and trade union complicity has repeatedly been treated as the problem. Yet Unite has still not identified a single example to substantiate the allegations made against me. Nor, after more than £1.5 million in inquiry-related legal expenditure, has it publicly identified a single trade union official complicit in blacklisting or in covering up the evidence I brought forward in 2005.

Many of the workers who suffered blacklisting are now elderly, and some have died without seeing these questions answered. If Unite had genuinely prioritised bringing them answers, it could have committed the resources needed from the outset and asked for the inquiry to be completed within a year, subject to properly explained extensions. Instead, years have passed and more than £1.5 million in inquiry-related expenditure has been disclosed, with no report published.

How many more blacklisted workers must die before they receive the answers they have waited so long for?

At the very least, you could ask Mr Randall to provide a firm estimated date for publication of the inquiry report. Given the substantial expenditure of over £1.5 million, this is surely something you can reasonably insist upon, without interfering with the investigators’ independent conclusions. Repeated assurances that publication is “coming soon” are no longer sufficient.

Without even a firm estimated publication date, blacklisted workers can reasonably regard these continuing delays as further avoidance rather than genuine accountability.

Yours sincerely,

Alan Wainwright
Unite member