The GMB union, one of Labour’s biggest donors, is facing fresh claims of bullying behaviour from the leader of a rival transport union. Maryam Eslamdout, the first female leader of the TSSA union, has accused GMB officials of trying to push her out of her job in a way that has significantly impacted her health.
Eslamdout claims that in a meeting in September, a senior GMB official caused her and her assistant general secretary “significant stress” by “shouting at us, wagging his finger in our faces, and threatening to damage our reputation if we didn’t comply with his demands”. She has now banned the official from entering the TSSA.
The GMB, which has been representing TSSA staff in industrial disputes, argues that Eslamdout is presiding over very poor staff morale, with “horrifying” staff survey results in which 90% described it as a “psychologically unsafe” place to work.
Eslamdout, a former head of equalities at the Labour party, has been in post since 2023 when she took over after the dismissal of Manuel Cortes for gross misconduct. She believes the GMB is acting in a hostile way towards her leadership in order to attempt a takeover of the TSSA, which with about 18,000 members is much smaller than the GMB’s over 550,000 members.
Eslamdout has questioned whether Gary Smith, the GMB general secretary, is fit to lead the union, suggesting he is “tacitly condoning the behaviours on the ground” by GMB officials. She also believes a male leader would not have been treated the same way.
The GMB has faced internal claims of bullying in the past, which it denies, and has been working to improve its culture after being found by an independent report in 2020 to be “institutionally sexist”.
A GMB spokesperson said the union is “duty bound to protect members from this kind of workplace environment – no matter who the employer is”. They added that the GMB had previously decided not to merge with the TSSA after due diligence revealed “serious issues”.