For a union on the picket lines, not the sidelines: Why I am standing for UNISON NEC

Kevin Corran, a mental health support worker, UNISON activist in Greater Manchester and a member of Socialist Alternative, is standing for the elections to UNISON’s National Executive Council. He is running as part of the left-wing Time for Real Change slate. For more information on Time for Real Change, click here!

As an NHS mental health support worker for over 30 years, I have seen how these services have deteriorated under successive Tory and Labour Governments. Over the last 15 years, there has also been an intensification of the attacks on our wages, terms and conditions, as well as increased outsourcing and privatisation.

As a union, we urgently need to address the 20% real-terms pay cut NHS health workers have suffered. Our pay affects every aspect of our lives, and the lives of our family and communities. We must win the upcoming battles on pay!

These issues have been exacerbated by a lack of leadership in UNISON Health Sector. This leadership has not been able to deliver the industrial action ballot mandate for a national pay campaign, not because union members won’t struggle for pay, but because their strategy does not inspire or give confidence to members. NHS workers simply do not believe this leadership can deliver a successful campaign. A strategy of consultative ballots, consultations and polls, only serve to divert, distract and disengage workers.

We need a clear, confident and militant message from a new leadership. A union of 1.3 million members does have the strength and power to win on NHS pay. The Organising To Win strategy, initiated by the union’s broad left Time For Real Change, is now transforming our union, with big strike victories in NHS re-banding campaigns, that have put millions of pounds into the pockets of workers. We need to take this momentum into a national pay campaign that delivers.

No more privatisation!

Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, at UNISON Health Conference in April confirmed his credentials as a transphobe and arch-privatiser of health services. Cosy chats with this Labour government will not win the battles we need to win. This government opposes the policies of our union.

We need an NEC that campaigns for the health service, rebuilding and funding all of the NHS, bringing all health services back into public ownership and under democratic control, with a strong voice for workers, service users and patients.

Every UNISON member should get involved in this election, but also make the union their own by helping to organise it. It is through the process of getting organised within our workplaces and our unions that we find the strength and power to win these vital battles.