Call to action: Defend Steve North, oust the right wing!

Steve North, a fighting trade unionist in Salford, UNISON President and Socialist Alternative supporter, has recently been suspended unjustly from his positions within the UNISON trade union.

Sign the petition for Steve’s reinstatement!

Model Motion

Alongside his removal as President, Steve has been barred from holding any positions, including within his own branch, which is leading the charge against this manoeuvre. It is clear that this is in retaliation for Steve’s leading role within the broad left group Time for Real Change (TFRC), and the general struggle to turn UNISON into a more democratic and fighting union.

This attack exposes what is at stake for the right wing and the bureaucracy within UNISON at the current moment. Over the last several years, their ‘business-as-usual’ unionism and subservience to the increasingly anti-worker Labour Party leadership has been significantly challenged in an organised way through the increasing success of the left in the TFRC group, in which Socialist Alternative members play a significant role.

TFRC has had a concrete effect on beginning to transform the union into one of more democratic accountability and participation, growing its membership, fighting and winning more of what workers need rather than the insufficient things on offer from employers or the government. It has also posed the question of reevaluating UNISON’s affiliation to Labour, a critical one at a time when Labour leads a government intent on implementing austerity, sacking thousands of UNISON members and in general attacking workers, immigrants and LGBTQ+ people.

If the left is successful in maintaining the leadership of the National Executive Council, this gives momentum to the possibility of TFRC candidate Andrea Egan winning the General Secretary position later this year, thus rooting out any remaining fortress of the right wing within the elected national positions of the union. It would fundamentally shift the balance of forces in favour of workers not only within UNISON, but as the biggest union in the country, within the entire trade union movement. This is something which the UNISON right wing, the Labour Party and the bosses all fear.

The targeting of members like Steve North shows however that this will not be an easy battle. The bureaucracy, aided by Labour Party operatives, will use everything at its disposal including the apparatus to avoid this happening, including any amount of dirty tricks.

Socialist Alternative says:

• No to right-wing attacks on democracy – reinstate Steve North into all of his elected positions and begin an immediate review of the procedures by a panel of democratically selected members

• UNISON must be truly democratic. For election of all senior positions within the union! For a General Secretary on the average salary of members!

• No kowtowing to a government intent on attacking UNISON members. Fight for a real pay rises, better terms and conditions, and against attacks on any section of the working class

• For an urgent discussion on political organisation and Labour Party affiliation – support a new left party of struggle!