Alex Homits, Radical Trade Union Organiser, Expelled from Mandate Over Criticism of Union Bureaucrats

As is usual with trade union bureaucrats, when confronted with criticism, they reach for the weapon of intimidation, censure and expulsion. The Mandate trade union conference on the 26th of April 2026 saw this play out in full view of all the delegates present.

Radical trade union organiser Alex Homits was expelled from the union over what he describes as a “corrupted process” involving “lies and forged documents”. He was subsequently forcibly dragged out of the room while arguing his appeal. 

“My crime was criticising officials for not working properly or doing their jobs. Instead of taking my criticism on board and reflecting on it they silenced me like they silence many other members including ex-Debenhams staff. These people are paid huge wages to support workers and their members, “ Homits told Aontacht. 

“I am deeply disappointed that half of conference delegates did not see the circus in the news, the deselection of decent people from delegates and the empty seats from one of the divisions as major problems,” he continued.

“To some degree it's not their fault – they've been told a load of lies by the majority of Mandate's officials, to another degree they could have been a bit more curious”

It is not the first time that Mandate has come under fire for underhanded tactics when dealing with oppositional voices inside the union. As of April 9th, in the lead-up to the Conference, five other members were suspended for raising “concerns about union finances, senior staff salaries, and the use of NDAs“. 

Some of them were involved with the Debenhams strike of 2020-2021. This was Ireland’s longest running industrial dispute, which went on for 406 days. The other expelled members are Lorna Langan, Brenda Histon, ⁠Sarah Byrne, Helen O’Keeffe and ⁠Mark Hayes, according to a petition created that appeals for the decision to be reversed. 

The expulsion of socialist organisers from the mainstream trade unions is not new. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), an umbrella organisation for SIPTU, UNITE and Mandate, have over the years come to be dominated by moderate, apolitical and centrist leadership. 

Alex is National Organiser for the Independent Workers’ Union (IWU), a trade union which was founded in 2003 to live up to the spirit of James Connolly and James Larkin, precisely to counter this trend. 

The IWU is a working-class response to the decline of the mainstream trade union movement, the rise of bureaucratic leadership which cares more about cozying up to the government through the social partnership initiative, and lining their own pockets, than getting workers the best deal. 

“Trade unionism will not stop because I am not a member of Mandate or others leave. We will break with old traditions of doing nothing and take the fight to the employer class with or without the yellow trade unionists,“ Alex concluded, in this spirit.