Unison 2026: "far from out of the woods"

The National Delegate Conference (NDC), 16-19 June 2026 in Brighton, of the big public service union Unison was a cagey affair. It was the first with socialist Andrea Egan as General Secretary, but the union still has a majority right-wing National Executive Council (NEC).

In contrast to some recent years, Egan had a lot of goodwill from the conference floor, and she assiduously worked the fringe circuit. But we are far from out of the woods as regards witch-hunting of the left, and the policy and campaign agenda is moving only painfully slowly toward real action.

Key debates included the following:

• Increasing participation of low paid women in Unison - while this is a worthy ambition some delegates pointed out that we should mainly show ambition to end low pay.

• Justice for migrant workers - Unison has begun to do good work mobilising against the Government’s anti-migrant policies, particularly those affecting members working in health and social care.

• Organising to Win - this is the ostensibly left-wing strategy to change the union from servicing individual members to using our collective strength to make real gains on pay, etc.

• Trans rights in the light of the EHRC guidance - good policy was passed, but transphobic delegates felt bold enough to speak and were largely unchallenged by the chair.

• Building on the Employment Rights Act - there is frustration at the slow progress toward abolishing the 50% ballot threshold.

• Israel/Palestine - from the tenor of the debate it seems likely that there could be a concerted effort by the SWP and others next year to overturn Unison’s “two states” position.

• Welfare not warfare - there was bigger than expected resistance to this policy passing.

New witch hunt?

On the penultimate day the Standing Orders Committee (SOC) pulled Lambeth branch delegates Ruth Cashman and Simon Hannah up for distributing the text of their branch’s emergency motion on trans rights, which the SOC had not printed in the conference motions booklet for fear of "legal jeopardy". It’s not clear what rules the Lambeth comrades were deemed to have broken.

On Friday morning they were expelled from the conference. Supportive delegates raised points of order to ask why, and point out that transphobic speakers were still in the hall, but the chair shut down this debate. Many branches put in complaints - we hope that this will lead to the General Secretary launching an investigation into how the SOC and the conference chair behaved. Ruth and Simon addressed a lively, impromptu demonstration outside the conference centre at lunchtime.

Lambeth’s motion has been available on the branch’s website since they first passed it.

Around the conference

Angela Rayner MP was the NEC’s pick for guest speaker, announced at short notice and received less than rapturously - for starters, many delegates know that Unite suspended Rayner from membership for her lack of support for the striking Birmingham bin workers.

The new right-wing presidential team that starts office from the end of NDC includes Micaela Tracey-Ramos, a supporter of the Communist Party of Britain. In the coming year we will need to expose the politics of this organisation, particularly its opposition to trans rights.

The Time For Real Change (TFRC) fringe meeting was well-attended but a missed opportunity. It was neither a celebration of Andrea Egan’s victory nor a real opportunity to discuss tactics in the new situation. It went on far too long with too many top table speakers - John McDonnell is far better as a socialist MP than as a chair.

Egan’s General Secretary conference speech contained some good passages, and even snuck in some imagery from the Communist Manifesto. She talked about the need to change the union so it can mobilise its members to be a real working-class force that can lead in society.

An important element in this will be defending victimised reps, such as Tom Barker and Ameen Hadi, against their employers but also standing up for left-wing reps and delegates, such as Ruth Cashman and Simon Hannah, against the union bureaucracy.