UNISON NEC elections: Keep up the pressure for the fighting union we need

By Socialist Alternative members in UNISON 

Nominations for candidates standing for UNISON’s National Executive Council (NEC) closed on 14 February, with over 130 candidates fighting it out for 68 NEC seats during April/May elections. Most of these are part of the two main blocks with very different visions of what UNISON should be.The Time For Real Change (TFRC) group, fielding 56 candidates is the dominant left grouping, in which Socialist Alternative plays a significant role.

TFRC has already made an impact across the union, using a slim majority with sympathetic allies, on the NEC for four years. Strike pay is now paid at £50 per day from day one of any dispute, significantly increasing the confidence and willingness of members to take effective action where necessary.

UNISON has also been at the forefront of campaigning against the Israeli state’s genocidal war against the people of Gaza. The Organising to Win strategy has pushed forward the idea of workers winning disputes collectively, rather than a total reliance on servicing individual members’ problems whilst the big questions are unanswered.

Building a fighting trade union

For decades, UNISON was seen by members and employers as a passive trade union, always seeking to compromise with the bosses and kowtowing to the Labour leadership rather than encouraging members to go into battle to win lasting, material gains.

Since the NEC swung to the left, the General Secretary and her team of unelected officials, as well as the conservative layer, now reformed as ‘Members Together’, have continued the tradition of a ‘servicing union’. However, they are now under immense pressure, maintaining their support for Labour’s leadership when the experience of millions of workers is that Labour just continues where the Tories left off.

Praising Labour’s obsession with growing the capitalist economy ahead of actual investment in public services, well-paid jobs and green housebuilding that could happen today, is a recipe for more outbursts, fuelled by the right and targeting the wrong people.

There is a real danger that Labour’s rightward trajectory will leave further room for Reform UK and their hangers-on to whip up misogyny, racism, transphobia and promise false solutions to the very real problems of poverty and exclusion that many working-class people are facing. Britain’s largest trade union must stand for an alternative to Labour’s betrayals.

Time For Real Change activists are determined to develop the work done so far by retaining control of the NEC for the left and using this as a springboard for a single left challenge for the General Secretary seat later in 2025.

Supporting Andrea Egan as the democratically elected TFRC candidate, Socialist Alternative members will continue to play a major role in developing TFRC as the left in UNISON, and raising the confidence and determination of members to use union power to resist all the attacks we are facing, but also to campaign for UNISON and its million members to play a part in building a desperately-needed new party of the working class.