Sources tell me that TDC Labour councillor, and Chair of Ramsgate Town Council, Steve Albon, paid a long, and reportedly vomit inducing, tribute to former council Chief Executive Madeline Homer, at the 8th June meeting which decided to remove her from her job in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) and a severance package which I believe to have cost TDC taxpayers at least £400,000!
For those of you who don’t know, before becoming a Labour Party councillor, Albon used to work for TDC as a planning enforcement officer.
For reasons unknown, he left his job in in 2016/17 with a NDA said to be in the region of £15-£20,000. Under TDC’s officer delegation system this payment was most likely approved by Madeline Homer who also happened to be the council’s Head of Paid Service.
Was Albon’s tush-tonguing tribute to the departed Homer a thank you for her approving his generous NDA which covered up goodness knows what in his TDC work record?
What makes this unpalatable episode even more distasteful is the fact that Albon, whilst working at TDC, was also the UNISON branch secretary. A post he occupied for several years. In this position it was Albon’s duty to protect the interests of UNISON members by securing decent pay and ensuring their health, safety, and well-being in the workplace.
Yet having been provided, as a councillor, with extensive and significant evidence that ex-Chief Executive Madeline Homer was a workplace bully, he hypocritically jettisoned his trade union principles and chose instead to support and praise to the heavens a person who is said to have created a climate of fear amongst TDC staff, and to vote in favour of rewarding that bully with a £400k severance package.
Dumping the interests of union members in favour of lining the pockets of misbehaving and already well paid TDC bosses appears to be par for course for Albon.
Sources have recounted to me how the then UNISON branch secretary, helped in 2015 to broker a NDA and pay out reported to be in the region of £250,000 for former Commercial Services Director Mark Seed.
Seed’s departure followed on from my exposure of the “industrial white finger” scandal which permanently debilitated about 15 members of council’s ground maintenance staff.
The council paid derisory compensation to the staff which, through its negelect, had been caused serious injury, and for which it was fined a paltry £250,000 for deliberate breaches of health and safety laws.
For a supposed trade union official to help to broker a £250k deal for an already richly rewarded Director who was in charge of a system which caused life changing damage to the health of 15 poorly compensated staff, is beyond contempt.
But Albon’s antics are firmly rooted in the gutter. At a UNISON Xmas party in 2010 I was amazed to witness him and several drunken colleagues throw bread rolls at the cleavage of young female trade union rep accompanied by great merriment and crude commentary from them. I reported this incident to the UNISON branch chairman and to my line manager at the time, but sadly it went no further.
In my opinion Albon is a disgrace to socialism and trade unionism, which despite Keir Starmer’s shenanigans, are things I still hold dear. Politically Albon appears to hold nothing dear, apart from the taste of the boss's backside.