🙌 Unison’s new general secretary is socialist social worker Andrea Egan
Andrea’s win is a win for us; our branch committee is confident this marks a huge step forward in our fight as a Higher Education UNISON branch. She’s keen for UNISON’s different sectors to not have to fight over the union’s resources, and most importantly has promised to cut UNISON’s ties with Labour ASAP.
More info from UNISON website here
❓Who is Andrea?
Our branch committee met Andrea at UNISON’s HE & FE conference, and listened to her inspiring talk at a fringe event. Here are some notes we made:
- Andrea is a social worker from Bolton and a self-proclaimed ‘straight-talking working class trade unionist’. She’s actually worked with people failed by the system, so is working hard to change this.
- She’s been active in UNISON for 37 years, and has well-rounded experience working from different angles as a steward, branch secretary and union president.
- She’s a socialist who opposes Kier Starmer. Labour increasingly doesn’t represent the views of UNISON members, and she wants to cut ties: “Trade unions should be fighting against the government, not bending to it”.
🤔 What does this mean for us?
Our General Secretary can feel far away from our branch, but it’s a very important role in the union – if UNISON was a country, Andrea would essentially be our Prime Minister.
- More support for Higher Education: she understand our cuts to jobs, courses, but increasing student numbers and pressure. We train all of the other job sectors UNISON represents, but don’t currently get as much support from UNISON as others. She is aware of the emphasis in HE on UCU, and wants us to be as big a power.
- More bargaining at the top: She will also bargain for us nationally rather than rely on ‘recommendations’ from bodies like UCEA (Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association). She understands that these are systemic issues we need to be fighting in places like government as well as in our workplaces.
- Speaking out when it matters: She feels UNISON has failed members previously by taking time to speak out on matters like trans rights and migrant members. She won’t dither with a response and will actually take action.
- More resources for branch officers: She has developed a package for support that has currently been sat with the UNISON higher packages for the last few years – this will hopefully now be available. She doesn’t want branches to be left to cope on their own as they currently are.
- More organised members: She wants to organise members rather than serve them, giving us the tools to adequately fight for ourselves. She wants to set up ‘political schools’ to help young members get more involved and understand union bureaucracy.
- No more Labour Link: part of our subs currently go to the Labour party through UNISON’s ‘labour link’. She knows members are sick of the Labour government, and she will work to cut UNISON’s ties.