EXCLUSIVE: TSSA union boasts – and accused of lying – about disenfranchising retired members

The TSSA union’s deeply unpopular general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust moved this week to disenfranchise all the union’s retired members – and now she’s boasting about it. Not just that, but senior TSSA figures say that she and her coterie are lying to justify it – and have put the union’s structures into collapse.

TSSA union: yet more scandal

In an email to members, the union management boasted that it is “proud” of what it has done – and claimed that disenfranchising TSSA’s many retired members was “long overdue” and “another important Kennedy Review milestone”:

We are proud to share that TSSA has reached another important Kennedy Review milestone.Following a recommendation of the Kennedy Review, the Executive Committee has agreed to consolidate our retired members into a single National TSSA Retired Members’ Branch. This is a long-overdue change and brings TSSA into line with the approach already adopted by many other unions.

This new national structure will provide retired members with a centralised branch through which they can coordinate strategically, share experience, and network with peers at their own pace and convenience. Just as importantly, it will amplify the collective voice of retired members, creating a strong “super branch” that can speak clearly and confidently within the union and beyond.

We look forward to working closely with members of the new National Retired Members’ Branch and to the valuable contribution they will continue to make to TSSA’s life and direction.

This change will also have an impact on working members. As retired members move into the national branch, there may be vacancies for officer roles in local branches/divisional councils. We strongly encourage members to step forward and consider standing for these positions where opportunities arise.

The Kennedy Report exposed the bullying and sexual harassment of former general secretary Manuel Cortes and his cronies. Members and staff, furious at Eslamdoust’s endless war on union workers and member democracy, are not shy about saying that Eslamdoust is propagating the abuses of the Cortes era rather than undoing them.

But the Kennedy Report doesn’t say one word about closing retired branches. Not one.

No recommendations to close branches

In fact, the report only mentions retired members – at all – one single time. Not to recommend closing their branches, but to say that the union relies too heavily on them and needs to encourage more working members to take up positions.

It also notes that if working members are not actively engaged in the union, TSSA management can easily stitch up elections to key positions – ironically exactly how Eslamdoust was installed despite having no relevant experience. Because of this, the report suggests that TSSA staff who are not TSSA members (most are GMB members, a union now de-recognised by Eslamdoust and her allies:

Finally, for this foreword, I want the TSSA to examine its democratic standing and traditions. It appears that engagement at branch level is dwindling and is heavily orientated towards retired members. This can present a real problem. Not only because it detaches the leadership from reality of the current world of work as it is being experienced by members, but also because it means there is no healthy throughput of talent to key roles within the organisation. Only TSSA members can stand for election to General Secretary (GS), the most powerful role in the union. The most likely candidate to be successful in a GS election is someone who knows the organisation inside and out – i.e. a staff member. Very few staff members belong to the TSSA. So, GS elections are, to all intents and purposes, uncontested (or are notionally contested by candidates who have little prospect of winning). A key individual is seen to be ‘groomed’ for the post by the small number of senior managers who hold power, and that individual is then ‘crowned.’

That’s all clear enough – and not remotely what the management claims. So to try to persuade furious members that it is, Eslamdoust’s ally John Rees sent an email to retired members claiming that the change is “fully aligned” with Kennedy’s recommendations. And to embellish the claim, he added that it was “comprehensively and fully accepted” by the union’s annual conference after its publication:

This change is fully aligned with the recommendations of the Kennedy Report, which was comprehensively and fully accepted by TSSA Annual Conference in 2023. The report set out a clear direction to consolidate retired members’ structures in order to strengthen representation, improve consistency, and ensure long-term sustainability.

Nonsense

Poppycock, says retired assistant general secretary Steve Coe – who wrote and moved the 2023 conference motion. Coe told Skwawkbox:

Mr Rees has been fed this from on high, a deliberate lie to justify their actions.

Coe added that the 2023 conference motion merely ‘noted’ the Kennedy Report and did not endorse it, let alone “comprehensively and fully”. He underlined that there are no Kennedy recommendations “relating specifically to retired members” and “certainly not to consolidate retired members’ structures”.

He went on:

This is not only a massive blow to retired members, who have now almost entirely lost their representation and their voice at conference. It’s also a massive blow to the majority of TSSA’s working branches. Most branches run on retired members. Most will struggle to fill officer positions and struggle even to have a quorum in order to vote validly on anything or put motions to conference.

But this is not accidental. TSSA management is not just silencing retired members, it’s silencing most members and neutering conference – all to protect a general secretary who is unfit for the role and held in contempt by members and staff.

Coe also pointed out the inherently discriminatory nature of the move:

Retired members are now all forced into a branch consisting only of other retired members. They have been summarily ousted from positions they were democratically elected and are barred from standing for them again. It’s ageism and illegal, as well as completely undemocratic – neither retired members, nor the wider membership through conference, have been consulted, let alone asked to vote on it.

A wrecking ball to TSSA

In 2024, Eslamdoust and her allies wrecked the TSSA’s annual conference and blocked a planned no-confidence vote against her.

But this is just the tip of a very large iceberg of member, rep and staff disgust with their ‘leader’. The TSSA has been embroiled for years in strikes because of the union workers’ fury at Eslamdoust’s attacks on them and their GMB union reps, both public and private. The attacks culminated, in January 2026, with Eslamdoust de-recognising GMB as the workplace union – an outrageous move for a union boss that came after Eslamdoust told the Guardian that she is only being criticised because she is female.

After her demand for special treatment failed, the TSSA is now accused of trying to neuter democratic opposition – starting with retired members.

Featured image via the Canary