Letter: Issues in Unison

Ruth Cashman’s analysis (Solidarity 769) of the situation in UNISON since Andrea Egan became General Secretary was good and included useful info.

I want to add a few comments, relating to the political side of the union’s campaigning.

Firstly, on two very “big political” issues, Egan has done good things I think are certainly worth noting:

1) She has come out strongly in support of Ukraine, signing the TUC / national union letter for the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion ; speaking at the USC rally at Parliament in March; having her (good) speech published on UNISON social media; meeting with representatives of the UNISON Members for Ukraine network; and directing UNISON’s International Officer to follow up effectively, which has also helped those pushing in the union’s NEC International Committee for more practical solidarity.

Obviously we will see, and activists and branches should push on, what else Egan does going forward. But doing the above, in a short period of time since her election, is not insubstantial – and not a given, since before she took office none of us really knew what her position on Ukraine was, despite a few hopeful signs. And given that a very substantial section, maybe a majority, of the organised UNISON left is opposed to support for Ukraine.

On one level Egan is just carrying out the policy won and promoted by UNISON activists in 2024-5; but so far she is doing so at least as actively and effectively as her right-wing predecessor, despite the hostility of a good chunk of her political base.

2) She has been clear and vocal pushing for left-wing policies on climate change – eg see her 8 June article on LabourList. She also issued a video, via UNISON social media, specifically opposing approval for the Rosebank oil field. Although UNISON already had on-paper progressive positions on climate questions, it is difficult to imagine Christina McAnea speaking out so vocally and clearly in sharp opposition to the Labour government and the leadership of the big unions in high-emitting sectors.

Again, just a start, but worth noting.

In areas of political demands closer to UNISON’s core remit, however, things have been less positive:

Ruth rightly highlights the issue of fighting cuts; on the pivotal aspect of fighting to increase local government funding the union continues to say, let alone do, very little.

On social care, UNISON is saying a lot and from what I can see doing quite a lot about care workers – as it should given their importance, their general situation and the shameful Labour government policies that are worsening it. However the union has remained on its previous trajectory of dropping even talk about a “national care service” – let alone clear demands for public ownership. The joint campaign with Tory MPs and private-sector care providers the union set up (“Future Social Care Coalition”), calling for more subsidies for the latter, seems to have fizzled out; but has been neither repudiated nor replaced.

On the minimum wage, as the employer / right-wing campaign against substantial improvements and even to freeze it gathers pace, UNISON is saying and doing essentially nothing to push the other way.

On the anti-union laws too, the union has been consistently weak and remains so under Egan.

The new General Secretary has been much more critical of the government than her predecessor – publicly, but sort of individually. That includes relatively sharp public comments on questions such as inequality and taxing the rich. The union generally however is not noticeably more outspoken about these things, let alone more active, than it was before Christmas.

In many ways, however, it would be wrong to focus on Egan herself when assessing such political problems. Not just because she has only been in office a few months, but because the failings I have described reflect wider political failings on the UNISON left. This left, including Time for Real Change, has been consistently weak on all these crucial issues, and on promoting class-struggle political demands and campaigns more broadly.

In addition to the kind of problems rightly flagged up by Ruth’s article, Time for Real Change tends to limited itself to an (often pretty vague) message of industrial militancy plus a generically more left-wing and democratic union. It has consistently had very little to say what kind of broad demands UNISON, its branches and its members should agitate and campaign for.

A look at the motions for UNISON National Delegate Conference and Local Government conference (16-19 and 14-15 June) – including motions coming from the left – confirms this problem. There is little, certainly little politically clear and action-focused, on any of the issues I cited. (This is partly because of the chronic UNISON problem of motions being ruled out of order, worse than in any other union – but not mainly.)

The 2024 Local Government conference vote for a national demonstration on local government funding was not just derailed by the bureaucracy, but allowed to die by the left – with almost no public reporting of what had happened, let alone attempt to respond to and “use” the sabotage either by determinedly re-raising the issue in the union or by agitating around the politics of council funding more broadly.

These are also questions class-struggle socialists need to take up in the UNISON left.

Sacha Ismail, South London