Robbie Segal, a Tesco worker from London, gained an incredible 40% of the vote in the election for the general secretary of USDAW, the UK's shopworkers union. Robbie and her small band of supporters waged their campaign against incumbant general secretary, John Hannett, and the entire USDAW machine, promising a worker's wage for full-timers, a fight on pay and conditions and reform to democratise the union.

Bureaucrats at every level of the union were mobilised to get Hannett's vote out, Robbie's posters were ripped off notice boards and the USDAW website and magazine was given over to Hannett's election campaign. Even now after the result, USDAW's website does not mention Robbie's share of the vote.

For many years shopworkers in the UK have been consistently sold-out by USDAW, a union that has embraced "social-partnership" unionism to a sickening degree. Hannett a man who sits on the low wage commission secured a meagre 20p an hour for the lowest paid workers while he takes home over £100,000 a year. Many shopworkers have become disillusioned with the union, which cannot even do day-to-day case work with any degree of loyalty to its members.

Robbie's challenge is the start of a campaign to build a rank-and-file movement in the union under the banner of the USDAW Broad Left to challenge the perks of the bureaucrats, democratise the union and take back the union for the mebership.